From my favorite movies..

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

BEWARE OF FALSE REVIEWS & REVIEWERS. SOME REVIEWERS HAVE ONLY ONE REVIEW TO THEIR NAME. NOW WHEN ITS A POSITIVE REVIEW THAT TELLS ME THEY WERE INVOLVED WITH THE MOVIE. IF ITS A NEGATIVE REVIEW THEN THEY MIGHT HAVE A GRUDGE AGAINST THE FILM . NOW I HAVE REVIEWED OVER 200 HOLIDAY FILMS. I HAVE NO AGENDA. I AM HONESTThis adaption of the novel would make Charles Dickens happy. In case you don't the story here it is.Scrooge is a mean old man. He is always unhappy "about everything". He thinks his employee getting a day off work for Christmas really sets him off. He reluctantly does. On Christmas Eve 4 Ghost come to visit him and shows him how his anger has hurt "Only Himself" Now I like this adaption. According to IMDb there is 2 editions of the film. One runs an hour. The other one runs 78. I have yet to see the longer one. This film is also in public domain. And unfortunately many DVD versions of this film. Anybody can release or show this for free. That's too bad. Because it needs to be restored. Nobody restores public domain films.

If there's a lesson to be learned from the countless adaptations of A Christmas Carol, it's that the makers should stick to the text as closely as possible. Dickens barely wasted a word in his novella; it being a perfectly judged, perfectly paced bit of fiction.This adaptation takes a few wrong turns. It takes far too long before we get to the actual haunting, with the first 30 minutes being positively meandering. There's also a perfunctory sequence, featuring none of the main characters, where the King is celebrated. Maybe this kind of thing pleased the masses back in the thirties, but it does make the opening act a bit of a slog.One would hope that things would get back on track when Jacob Marley appears. Unfortunately, Jacob Marley doesn't appear at all; he's a rather unimpressive voice-over. It's an odd choice; as if the makers aren't confident enough to give us a character design that will work for us.Unfortunately, the sequence following this isn't much better. The visit from The Ghost of Christmas Past is done and dusted in less than 5 minutes (I'm not exaggerating). There's nothing of Scrooge of a boy, no mention of Fezziwig and we only really see the break-up of his relationship with Belle (and nothing of the good times Scrooge shared with her). This is a major misstep; as it fails to adequately give us Scrooge's backstory. Considering what *is* included in this adaptation, it's baffling that such a key segment was skipped over. I'm wondering if it was abridged so that they'd be no need for other, younger actors to play Scrooge, but that seems like an unnecessary compromise.The Present and Yet To Come sequences fare better, and the conclusion to the story is really rather good as adaptations of the novella go. However, the damage has already been done.It's a big shame as the cast are fine. Seymour Hicks may be a touch too shabby for my tastes as Old Scrooge, but he's able to give us a decent contrast in his performance (even if his redemption is far too quick, and seems almost complete after a quick glimpse at his past).In summary, this is probably on an even footing with the Reginald Owen offering from just three years later (1938). Both have as many flaws as aspects to recommend, but both are worth a watch to aficionados of the classic story.

Being a big fan of the classic Dickens story, I have decided to watch all the movie and cartoon versions and share my views of them here starting with the first motion picture talkie version, this 1935 British movie starring Sir Seymour Hicks.Lets start out with the negatives of this production, starting with what's missing from Dicken's story. Much from the Christmas past chapter is missing and I find it to be the most important of Scrooge's visits from the spirits. There is no trip to Eb's old school and his love for discovering the classics, no Sister Fan's visit to take him home, and more importantly, no Fezziwig. Without the old Fezziwig party scene, we lose Scrooge remembering what it was like to feel joy again and how well his old boss treated him as opposed to how he treats his man Cratchit. Two points that make Scrooge's transformation much more believable.Christmas past does include the scene where the love of his life, Belle, lets him go, however this scene comes off as laughable. Instead of having a younger actor portray young Ebenezer, they put a dark haired wig on Hicks and have an older woman portray Belle. The acting in this scene is too over the top and the music is overbearing and silly.A big letdown in this version are the ghosts. Christmas present is the only one of them visible and his entrance contains the spirit devouring a turkey leg while speaking his lines. He's like a Shakespearian General Bulkhalter from "Hogan's Heroes". And although we do see Jacob Marley's face on the door knocker, for some reason he's invisible in Scrooge's chambers.One of the best points of the movie is in just about every scene included from the book, the dialog is very faithful. The only scene really where it is not is the Marley scene where they cut about a page of text. They take out the part where Marley puts the scare of Scrooge by moaning and rattling his chains until Scrooge believes in him. I think it is very important to the story.I also like very much the Cratchits in this one. Bob and his wife may be a bit older than they should be, but I think they play the parts well of a tattered and torn family just getting by and not letting their circumstances break their spirits.As for Scrooge himself, Seymour Hicks's acting overall is good. But I think he makes just an OK Scrooge. There's something about him- A bit Sterling Hollawayish that makes him a peculiar choice for the part.All in all, I barely gave it a 7. Points earned for close Dicken's text, Hick's acting, and for the Cratchits. On the minus side, a few points taken away for Marley's ghost and Christmas past.

There have been tons of versions of "A Christmas Carol"--perhaps more than any other film. Because of this, only a very few stand out in a positive way--the rest are just copies of copies of copies and nothing more. I would put this 1935 film in this latter category, as it is competent enough in most ways and tells the story but absolutely nothing more. And, to make matters worse, much of Dickens' original social commentary has been deliberately muted.Before I talk about the quality of the film, I should say something about the quality of the print now available from archive.org. While downloads from this site are free since the films are in the public domain, a few of the films are a bit of a mess and could use some restoration. This is DEFINITELY the case with this film as the sound track and film are way out of sync. The only to deal with this was to periodically stop the film and re-start it--but soon it returned to the soundtrack being way ahead of the film. I am not sure how to fix this, and judging by the mediocrity of the film, it may not be worth doing.As for "Scrooge", this 1935 version is from Twickenham Studios and it boasts a cast of relatively minor actors. In the lead is Seymour Hicks who was reasonably good in the lead though he looked a bit older, gruffer and grouchier than most Scrooges. I won't beat a dead horse and discuss the plot--we ALL are familiar with it. However, I was very surprised that this film seemed to strongly de- emphasize the negative commentary about the rich and their duty to their fellow man. Apart from Scrooge, ALL the rich folks are wonderful and there even is a completely superfluous scene which I've never seen in another version that shows a lot of rich swells (led by the Lord Mayor of London) toasting the health of the Queen. Why? I guess to say, in an indirect way, that the mega-rich are really the salt of the earth and backbone of the British empire. Whatever. All I know is that the whole poverty angle was apparently distasteful to the blokes who made this one and they really gutted this aspect of the film. Additionally, at times, the film took some liberties which made it look cheap...which it was, actually. You do NOT see Jacob Marley's ghost AND the Ghost of Christmas Past is an ethereal thing--more of a cloud than a figure. Overall, this is a great version if you don't want to bother with social commentary, excellent special effects or top acting. It's sort of a cheaper version and considering how many nicer looking ones are out there, I see no real reason to see this one.