A Christmas Carol (1938)

hyped garbage

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

I've seen almost all the iterations of this classic novel's film adaptations. The acting is solid by the cast. The screenwriting and direction is compelling. The only reason I have marked down the rating is because I feel there is not enough of it. I don't know if it was written that way or if too much was left on the cutting room floor. It's 69 minute run time is apparently not enough to do justice to the tale. It almost feels like it's rushed and cannot wait to get to the ending credits, particularly in the visitations of the spirits and their education of Scrooge. Scrooge seems to flip from "Bah Humbug" to "Merry Christmas" like an on/off light switch when his conversion should be more gradual. Maybe it's just picking at nits, but that aspect of the movie really bothered me. Hence, the 6 rating.

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?

. . . as the American film production company MGM finds a way to put in all those beloved scenes from British novelist Charles Dickens' A CHR!STMAS CAROL that their British counterpart had left out in their nine-minute LONGER version just three years earlier. Where the British flick had lavished its middle third on a Victorian fest for Queen Vicky NOT in the original story, this much more faithful American adaptation dances through the familiar tale, even finding time for product placement in giving Scrooge's dwelling the iconic MGM lion logo for door knockers. One could quibble that the rotund Gene Lockhart makes for a far too well-fed Bob Cratchit, especially compared to Scrooge's clerk in the 1935 rendition, played by the appropriately thin Donald Calthrop. But setting that aside, a balding Reginald Owen here is a far more charismatic miser than the wildly white-haired Seymour Hicks was there. Plus, I think this is the first variation of CHR!STMAS CAROL in which Crachit knocks off Scrooge's top hat with a snowball!

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.