edalweber Review of A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol (1938)

Charles Dickens' beloved story of the meanest miser in London

[10/10 · 22 December 2019]

THIS IS A SUPERB VERSION OF DICKENS' IMMORTAL CLASSIC. IT IS NOT PERFECT But it is sti;ll a fine movie.Many have mentioned that it seems rushed and shortened. It certainly does not have all of the incidents in the original story.And seems more like a good B picture than an A. I think that this is because they originally planned to use Barrymore in the role of Scrooge,and things were fouled up by his accident,Reginold Owen, who was recommended by Barrymore was a fine actor and was great in the role,but was NOT a "big name" as was usually considered necessary for success.Often Studios insisten on Stars even though they were not really suited to the roles,An example was "Private Lives" which had "Names" but was a failure because they were not suited to their roles.Iyt was rushed I think because the studio kept delaying hoping that Barrymore might recover, and time grew short to get it ready for Christmas.They cut it short as far as scenes to save money incase it failed without Barrymore.Hedging tgheir bets.Arrangements had already been made to release it so they had to go ahead,It is unfortunate that so much of the story was pruned as it certainly would have been better.The cast is great.Some faults are hard to explain.Cnanging the original line of Christmas Past to Shrooge from "Bear but a touch of my hand here and you shall be upheld in more than this" to the far inferior line "Bear but a touch of my hand and you shall be safe" is hard to understand or justify.But all in all it is a classic movie familiar to all those who grew up in the 50's.The 1951 British version is more complete and should be on everyones' must see list,both convey the true spirit of Christmas!