A Christmas Carol '38

MGM’s A Christmas Carol was, before this year, on rotation on Turner Classic Movies during Decembers, often shown at the most awkward times and without much fanfare. Buried on early mornings and never quite heralded (certainly not like the great Christmas Carol with Alistair Sim), this version of the Charles Dickens classic novel was on just the other Midnight (AMC showed it two Midnights after multiple showings of the excellent George C Scott version) on American Movie Classics (well, this isn’t the case any longer; AMC should probably be called And More Commercials) but each showing was so late I had to go to bed because of work.
**½

It is funny but I found this version at Kmart of all places and snatched it up for a decent price on dvd. I have the '84 & '51 versions (and, believe it or not, the Disney/Jim Carrey version as well...) so  adding this to my library just seemed appropriate. Even though the film was on TCM at times less spectacular, it beats being stuck on AMC at 12 Midnight loaded with commercials. Anyway, this is far from my favorite version, although I just think Gene Lockhart is dandy as Scrooge’s mistreated but jolly (despite the circumstances against him) Bob Cratchet (I’m still partial to David Warner’s Bob in the 1984 Christmas Carol). Reginald Owen is a bit stagey to me as Scrooge and the film speeds through too much of what I think is important in the story of what drove him to be such a penny-pinching, unyielding old greedy meanie.

While I did get a bit teary-eyed at the scene where Bob talks of Scrooge’s nephew’s kind words about his sorrow for the loss of Tiny Tim, little else really delivers an emotional punch. To me, this version just glosses over a great deal of what sets up that emotional wallop. His “redemption” from such a hardened, bitter miser is what really leaves me satisfied and happy.

Look I’m a diehard horror fan, thru and thru, but a side of me just wants to be of good cheer from time to time. I’m not that guy that constantly lives in death, violence, and bloodshed; every once in a while a feel-good movie doesn’t hurt. Yeah, I’ve said it. Okay!!!

This version is probably the most Christian of screen adaptations I’ve seen, with a whole sequence dedicated to harmonized hymns in church from the nephew and his lovely and sweet fiancé, Bob and Tiny Tim. The Christmas Present of the movie is of more importance than Christmas Past. I have always felt that where the potency lied within the story was the past as far as how Scrooge was molded and shaped into the miserable business-only-matters Ebenezer at the beginning of the film. The uncaring, cold father who blamed him for the death of his wife and Scrooge’s mother, leaving Ebenezer to spend Christmases in school. The pure, gentle soul of the sister who was his source of comfort, substituting for the father’s lack of affection, dying giving birth to the nephew. How apprentice Scrooge, with help from Marley, was responsible for the upending of the business of his hearty employer, Fezziwig. Scrooge’s evolving dissolution of a promising relationship to a young lady he could’ve spent a joyous life with. These are details that reinforce why Scrooge has wound up in such a state. None of these, besides a momentary introduction to sis (who does mention how pop isn’t as he usually is) and Christmas Past Ghost (Ann Rutherford, who looks genuinely angelic) mentions her death while Fan was giving birth to Fred (Barry MacKay).

Christmas Present Ghost (Lionel Braham, all burly and cheery, looking huge upon first sight, down at Scrooge’s height once they’re walking) gets a little more time with Scrooge, allowing him to see Cratchet with his family, the tenderness and love present and accounted for (contrasting Scrooge’s pathetic loneliness and absence of family), as well as, Fred’s party with friends (of course, Scrooge the topic of conversation, and his reputation is none too kind). A break from the other adaptations shows Bob accidentally hitting his boss with a snowball (knocking his top hat into the street, causing a carriage wheel to run it over!) while with some street kids (and his sons), getting “sacked” in the process, burdened with eventually having to tell his wife, but his decision is to use what money he has at his disposal to give the family a great Christmas dinner without dwelling too much on an uncertain future.

I guess what really doesn’t work to me with Reginald Owens’ performance is that Scrooge is never quite so miserly that he needs very much nudging to see the error of his last dozen or so wasted years of being a Grinch. He damn near explodes into festive orgasmic delight for the festive holiday spirit during Christmas Present.

And, most importantly, the Christmas Future, the Grim Reaper has skimpy screen time, an abominable sin as far as I’m concerned. CF needs to be really creepy, and Scrooge’s time naively trying to avoid the fact that his death is what is on the lips of the businessmen who congregate around the exchange just isn’t given a whole lot of time. Scrooge doesn’t really ever get his chewing out so prevalent in other adaptations; and the score for this adaptation is too light and fluffy when it needs to intimate the necessary tone of darkness and sorrow that exists in spades throughout each stage of the title character’s trips into various times of his life, past, present, and future.

His “reclamation” and resurrection into a brand new man doesn’t for me garner the same sort of gratification because of the missing anecdotes that explain why he was a grouch, filled to the brim with the major focus on profit without any sort of harmony in his life to accompany the wealth his business brings. I think the others fare better, their reactions may be a bit theatrical (especially in how they seem overwhelming frightened of Scrooge’s drastic change in character) but because of the warmth and heart in their performances when they are rewarded by Scrooge I felt glad for them.