Your favorite version(s) of A Christmas Carol

[RickJay]

I voted for the Jim Carrey version simply because I wanted to give it some credit for being much, much better than I expected it to be. It was true to the source material and presented Scrooge as a person, not a caricature. Carrey’s voice work was ten times better than I expected as well.

[Edward_The_Head]

@puddleglum

The George C Scott version is the best. It gets that Scrooge is not an evil person, he is a miser. In the Alistair Sim version Scrooge is a villain who walks out on his dying sister, and screws Fezziwig out of his business. The Scrooge in the book loved his sister and Fezziwig and would not have intentionally hurt them. The tragedy of the story is that the love of money squeezed out the love of people from Scrooge and turned him into a lonely miser who has no friends and has no joy.

The musical Scrooge he is presented the same way. From his father not coming to get him during the Christmas break at first to his fiance leaving him for ‘loving money’, Scrooge slowly becomes miserly. He had a few chances to take a different path, he could have gone after Isabelle but didn’t, and through a lot of crappy things happening to him, many his own fault, he finally says “screw it, money’s never done anything bad to me.”

I never thought of Scrooge as being evil, he got unlucky and allowed all the crap that happened to him to affect everything around him.

[Inner_Stickler]

@Trinopus

The Disney version, with Scrooge McDuck (and Goofy as Marley’s ghost) is fair to middlin’. Fluffy, but fun.

Yeah, that’s the one that has the aura of childhood nostalgia around it for me.

[BobLibDem]

Just watched Alistair Sim and I have to admit he was brilliant. Love his giddy awakening on Christmas morning.

[WolfpackJeep]

And the charwoman’s reaction is priceless!

[Rhiannon8404]

@eschereal

I hope it is not threadshitting to say the best one has to be Blackadder’s Christmas Carol.

It cannot possibly be threadshitting as it is, indeed, the very best version. The only one I own.

[ekedolphin]

Mickey’s Christmas Carol, the first version I was ever exposed to, is still my favorite.

I have the musical version with Kelsey Grammar in the lead role, but it’s sometimes too emotionally intense for me to tolerate.

[crucible]

The radio version every Christmas I heard as a kid was the best, to me. The action and scenes I could imagine in my mind top anything I’ve ever seen in a movie or TV

I mean, at 6 or 8, the rattling of Marley’s chains gave me goosebumps.

[Baker]

As the OP I guess I’m surprised that an older version of ACC is the favorite. I’ve seen all the ones in the poll, and my favorite “straight” version is the George C. Scott version, while Mr. Magoo and Scrooged are a close second, as change up versions.

[Sherrerd]

I’ve seen most of these and they all have their good points, but I voted Magoo to give credit to the adaptation (listed as being by Barbara Chain) for putting across the deep emotion of this story in just 53 minutes. It’s true that Ignorance and Want, not to mention Fred, make no appearance, but what they symbolize are well-handled nevertheless. The adaptation is a marvel of concision.

And I love the Jule Styne/Bob Merrill songs. Plus you get Paul Frees! And Jack Cassidy, who was usually cast as a villain, as a very touching Bob Cratchit. (The voice cast is superb in general.)

[Elendil_s_Heir]

George C. Scott. Great cast, beautiful setting.

[Not_A_Tame_Lion]

@choie

For me, 1951 is the correct answer. There’s no better Scrooge–Sim is pitiable, funny, and by the end, even charming and endearing. He’s not evil or a villain–we see the evolution of his character as a younger man, with his heart closing bit by bit as his loved ones abandon him. (From his father’s emotional abandonment to his fiancée’s breaking off their engagement to his sister’s dying…) Old Scrooge remembers Fezziwig fondly, and we see that young Scrooge wasn’t entirely devoid of guilt for watching Fezziwig going under.

Even ignoring Sim’s unequaled portrayal, there’s Michael Hornden’s delightfully macabre Marley, plus Hermione Baddley as a feisty but sweet Mrs. Cratchit… and the rest are perfectly Dickensian portrayals of Bob Cratchit, his housekeeper (can’t tell you how often my family quotes “if it ain’t outta keepin’ with the situation!”), adorable young Fred, the gruesome undertaker/laundress/rag man trio, and the fantastic casting of young Scrooge (who not only looks like a young Alistair Sim, he was Sim’s mentee and adopted son).

Okay, two wrong things here.

To take the second one first, Fezziwig’s destruction is set up in the film as being due in large part to his failure to keep up with the industry. As (non-canon but delightfully written character) Mr. Jorking warns him, automation is the future and they must move with the times or be left by the wayside; Fezziwig says he won’t change, he’d rather die with his old breed of businessman.

Jorking’s success–before embezzlement becomes is his own downfall–lets him woo Scrooge and Marley from Fezziwig, who was probably starting to falter already. And though Scrooge eventually takes over when Fezziwig goes bankrupt, he’s embarrassed and unhappy to watch Fezziwig go.

Now the biggest one. Sim’s Scrooge loves his sister Fan, and does not “walk out on his dying sister,” at least not in the sense implied by that phrase. He seems to think she’s dead (or nearly so) when he backs away from the bed in abject grief. Then he sort of staggers forward, spies Fanny’s husband and glares at him in resentment (for knocking Fan up, I guess) and then adds an even more disgusted look at wee baby Freddie before leaving. Thereby completing the unfortunate circle of resentment, just as his dad resented Ebenezer for his mom dying in childbirth.

Anyhoo, once Young Scrooge leaves the scene, Old Scrooge is already chastising the Ghost of Christmas Past for taking him to this morbid scene when he hears Fanny continue to speak. The shocked expression on his face strongly implies that he’d thought she’d already died–or was no longer conscious–when he left.

Even Scrooge’s behavior to Adult Fred when he comes to visit early in the film isn’t one of hatred or evil. He must still tolerate Fred’s company at times–or Fred wouldn’t have bothered to visit at all. He has some inklings of the better man inside him when he visits Jacob’s death bed. I mean, he’s cold and crotchety, but he tries to comfort the scared Jacob with “you mustn’t reproach yourself. We did no worse than anyone else.” And he adds with utter honesty, “…And no better, if it comes to it.”

So no, I’ll not accept the implication that Sim’s Scrooge is some one-note villain. That film is a treasure box full of unique, memorable secondary character performances; a fantastically gloomy/spooky aura with music, lighting and sets; clever writing that’s both sharp-witted and sympathetic; and above all, a lead who carries the whole thing with eyes that tell Ebenezer Scrooge’s entire story in their wide depths.

And anyone who doesn’t cry when Scrooge tentatively walks into Fred’s parlor and “Barbara Allen” starts playing is in need of three visiting ghosts him/herself.

Thank you. I just finished watching this film (I do so every Christmas, personal tradition), and I want to say you’re spot on in your analysis of all these points. I’m convinced by all the voices in favor of the George C. Scott version to seek that out and give it a look, but I can’t imagine this story being done better than the Sim production. And indeed, I always tear up when the reconciliation with Fred scene comes; in many ways, I think it represents Scrooge’s transformation better than the stuff with Cratchit–the real heart of the matter. Great stuff.

[aceplace57]

Alastair Sim is my favorite Scrooge. I’ve seen other actors in the role. But Sim defines it.

[Elendil_s_Heir]

The tombstone from the Scott 1984 production is still in place in Shrewsbury: A Christmas Carol (1984 film) - Wikipedia