What a waste of my time!!!

ridiculous rating

Disturbing yet enthralling

Boring

This is one of the fastest films ever to reach the screen. It started shooting in October and was in theaters in December. This production however is the standard in which all other versions since have copied. This was the first production to have the "Spirits" come in one night! It also fleshed out Bob Cratchit family more. This is also one of those film that the older it gets the better the film becomes.In case you don't know the story "Scrooge" is a cranky old man. He hates Christmas and people in general. He has more in life than the people that surround him and yet he is poor.This 1938 film is in black and white and that seems like a huge asset. The cast is perfect! If you have never seen this version then what are you waiting for?

This a pretty decent, fairly reliable version of Dickens' famous story. Reginald Owen is an above average Scrooge, much more formidable than he is often portrayed. He is lithe and athletic in appearance and quite frightening to those who encounter him. He is lacking depth of character, not being the actor that Alistair Sim is, but still manages to do the job. Sim's Scrooge has a kind of depth, a touch of melancholy, that none of the others, including George C. Scott and Patrick Stewart, had. What I don't care for in this is some plot elements that could have been left alone. Cratchitt getting fired for throwing snowball at Scrooge seemed silly. It eliminated the tender scene at the end where Scrooge waits for the tardy clerk in his office. The scene here where he actually shows up at Bob's house is frantic and silly. Gene Lockhart is a reasonably good Cratchitt, but in most of the renditions he is seen as a bit too well fed and his family a bit too affluent, considering his circumstances. For me, however, the actors playing Tiny Tim and Fred, Scrooge's nephew are so distracting and so giddy, I can hardly stand to watch them. I suppose the screenwriters felt they were better storytellers than Dickens.

a special adaptation. Christmas spirit . and more. a good cast. and lovely atmosphere. sure, an antique. but very wise, touching and precise. the old fashion shining is not only virtue. it remains basis of an admirable work. sentimental and good medicine for soul, it is, in same time, a real Dickens. no tricks, no innovation. only lines of a classical story about conquest of a holiday. so, a honest movie. or little more because Reginald Owen does a memorable Scrooge. bitter, warm, seductive. fresh, fragile. perfect character without strange shadows. memory of respectable dear Charles Dickens is present in each performance. and the fragile map of this carol is more important by many other adaptations.

There's plenty of adaptations of A Christmas Carol out there and it's likely that, if you're going to delve into Christmas past, you may get no further than the 1951 version starring Alastair Sim. However, this one from 13 years earlier is also worthy of a look, even if it does take a few liberties with the story. I'm of the opinion that there's little point deviating too much from the source, as A Christmas Carol might just be the greatest spec script in English literature. Perfectly paced and with endless quotable dialogue, it really shouldn't be too hard to get a serviceable movie out of an adaptation. Perhaps that's why my biggest problems with this version are when it deviates from the source; such as Scrooge sacking Cratchett on Christmas Eve (making Bob Cratchett's toast to him the following day utterly bizarre), or the fact that Tiny Tim seems remarkably healthy for someone who has few Christmasses in their future. The largest oversight is the absence of Scrooge's lost-love Belle from the story, perhaps because it's the biggest indication of just why the old man is so bitter and miserly. Curiously, despite omitting this character, there's a bigger role for Fred's partner (his fiancée in this, rather than his wife). Why the film decides to focus on this couple without counter-balancing it with Scrooge's own sad love-story is a bit of a mystery. Aside from that, it's really not too bad. It tells the story well and doesn't look nearly as old as it actually is. But in a world of countless versions of this story, it is a little forgettable - neither bad enough to stick in the mind, nor interesting enough to join the ranks of Sim, Scott and the Muppets.