Trivia for
A Christmas Carol (1938) More at IMDbPro »

• Lionel Barrymore was originally set to play Scrooge, but had to back out due to illness. Barrymore instead suggested his friend Reginald Owen take over the role. Barrymore did not perform the radio version of "A Christmas Carol" in 1938 so that it would not interfere with the success of the picture, and he appeared in a special trailer for it called A Fireside Chat with Lionel Barrymore (1938), which was produced by Frank Whitbeck and directed by Edwin L. Marin.
  
  
• John Seitz temporarily replaced cameraman Sidney Wagner during production when Wagner was ill with a bad case of flu, and Marvin Stuart replaced assistant director Dolph Zimmer when Zimmer had a cold.
  
  
• MGM released a record-breaking 375 prints of the film so that as many people as possible could see it during the Christmas season.
  
  
• This was the only film in which Gene Lockhart appeared with his wife Kathleen Lockhart and their daughter June Lockhart,
  
  
• Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge McDuck was probably based physically on this version of Ebenezer Scrooge, with the fringe of hair and the small tuft of hair on the top of his head.
  
  
• Although he seemed much older, Reginald Owen was only 4 years older than Gene Lockhart.
  
  
• June Lockhart's film debut.
  
  
• In the 1950s New York television market, there was a local channel 9 (WOR-TV then, WWOR-TV, Secaucus, NJ now) that broadcast a "movies only" show called "Million Dollar Movie". Its theme song was "Tara's Theme" from Gone with the Wind (1939), and its format was showing movies over and over again, back to back, not unlike in a movie theater. But on Christmas Eve for years and years, it would continuously play this movie right up to Christmas morning.
  
  
• Shown annually every Christmas season on Chicago television station WGN, until it was replaced there in the 1990's by the 1951 Alastair Sim version.
  
  
• The word "humbug" is misunderstood by many people, which is a pity since the word provides a key insight into Scrooge's hatred of Christmas. The word "humbug" describes deceitful efforts to fool people by pretending to a fake loftiness or false sincerity. So when Scrooge calls Christmas a humbug, he is claiming that people only pretend to charity and kindness in an scoundrel effort to delude him, each other, and themselves. In Scrooge's eyes, he is the one man honest enough to admit that no one really cares about anyone else, so for him, every wish for a Merry Christmas is one more deceitful effort to fool him and take advantage of him. This is a man who has turned to profit because he honestly believes everyone else will someday betray him or abandon him the moment he trusts them.
  
  

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