My reaction to "Disney's A Christmas Carol," the motion-capture animation released today, was that the Robert Zemeckis version of Charles Dickens evergreen was, "too much Halloween night and not enough Christmas morning." (Read my review here.) I scribbled in my notebook, "What would Dickens think?"
Mr. Dickens is, of course, no longer with us. But his great-great grandson Gerald Dickens, 46, was happy to speak with Flickgrrl by phone from Oxford. (Not coincidentally, the actor will be touring the U.S. with his one-man show of A Christmas Carol next month and will bring it to Byers' Choice in Bucks County on December 11 and 12.) Dickens has yet to see the Zemeckis version, but among the many movie versions of Carol, he's fond of "the classic Alastair Sim version" (1951, by Brian Desmond-Hurst), because "it has the joyousness and captures the point that nasty Scrooge must get terrified and change his ways."
"I also enjoyed the George C. Scott version, with Scrooge as a big brash businessman of the sort you might see on Wall Street rather than this weaselly sort," Dickens reflects. He has no thoughts about the 1988 Bill Murray update, Scrooged.
"But when it comes right down to it, you can't beat The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992), can you?," asks Dickens rhetorically. He thinks that if his ancestor were alive, it would probably be his favorite, too. "He was fond of color and splash."
Your favorite? While I like the 1951 verson and also the 1970Albert Finney musical Scrooge, I think the most effective cinematic Carol is the free adaptation: It's a Wonderful Life. You?
Comment removed.
I'm a fan of "Scrooged," since its name was mentioned. Murray's willingness to lay it on the line emotionally in his big scene at the end works for me, and was a brave going-against-the-current of its time, the greed-is-good 1980s. (Plus, Michael Pollard, Carol Kane, and David Johansson are wonderfully apt American equivalents of the Dickensian love of juicy peripheral characters.) However, my favorite will always be the version starring Mr. Magoo that was made for TV in the 1960s. The animation, and Jim Backus's vocal performance as Scrooge, seemed to capture the spirit of the Dickens' original better than any other version I've seen. Plus, the Ghost in the black cowl (either Present or Future, I can't remember) scared the bejeezus out of the very young me.— wwolfe- It's always the 1951 version with Alastair Sim that is the definitive version because there is no better Scrooge than Sim.— edwardcopeland
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