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Christmas Films
"It's even worse for mouses!"
It's rather a waste of time and other things to postulate a hypothesis that seeks to challenge the unavoidable and universal conclusion that the Alistair Sim outing in the role of yer actual Ebenezer Scrooge, that being, erm, SCROOGE, is the best by a long chalk. Sim is so utterly perfect in the role in demeanour, movement, look and performance that there's not much we can add to the general consensus that this one is, indeed, the greatest. There's lots more to commend it as well as Sim, though. Patrick Macnee plays the young Marley in a brash, junior Nazi kind of way which is entirely in keeping with the situation (and of course it's possible to discern even at this early age the talent that would take him all the way to ROLLING THUNDER on the telly), George Cole, Sim's junior version of himself, gets the younger Scrooge down to a copperplate `t', Elsa Lanchester is particularly common as the charlady, Miles Malleson is suitably shambolic as Old Joe and even Jack Warden is great as the Ghost of Christmas Past. All great stuff. No Christmas is complete without it.
But of course, not every Yule is made cool by the presence of SCROOGE and we do on occasion have to labour under the strain of various inferior versions. Schedules used to be replete with festive specials that harpooned the basic story and chucked them into a suitably despicable urban setting for various gruesomely schmaltzy tales of redemption but these were nearly always bloody awful (apart from the regular HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN ones, natch) and other films also hijacked the theme to get their own made-for-TV kicks, but we shan't consider those here. Instead let's look at three other versions and decide which amongst them is the worst.
First comes the Clive Donner helmed A CHRISTMAS CAROL which has the added bonus of the proper title and the especial bonus of George C Scott as Scrooge. David `suitable case for' Warner is an adequate (but, we would contend, no more) Cratchit and Michael Gough is even on hand as one of the William Mervyn-style Kindly Old Gentlemen. Of course, the otherwise brilliant Edward Woodward is heartily in place as the Ghost of Christmas Present but he's really just too darn scary for our liking. He's supposed to be the nice one, isn't he? Anyway, on the whole a good effort (even thought the Tiny Tim `God Bless You' rating is a little high).
Second we have to plump for THE MUPPETS CHRISTMAS CAROL for serious consideration. Despite the obvious immediate setback of starring that Michael Caine character it's difficult not to love this with its giant ghosts and singing fruit and veg and Billy Bunny freezing to death in the streets. Since it's a waste of time to get into the plot (and we're really rather assuming that you know it anyway) we can instead concentrate on the added bits – the trimmings, if you will – and they all taste pretty good. No human involvement to speak of, Statler and Waldorf as Marley and Marley (do you see?), singing lobsters and a relatively low Tiny Tim quotient (mitigated in any case by his being a frog) all make this a good `un we reckon. And your hearts as cold as a wet Christmas if you think otherwise.
So two down and one to go. As things stand the processes of elimination aren't really on the side of A CHRISTMAS CAROL starring Reginald `Admiral Boom' Owen so it only really falls to us to confirm the sentence. The film that we have taken to referring to as The Bloody Reginald Owen One isn't that bad in itself but there's nothing so dispiriting as a disappointing Xmas film and on that value scale then this just bites the big one. If this was the only Dickensfest available on or around Christmas Day we would be very miffed indeed: the sort of miffed that only a 5 kilo tin of Celebrations can mollify. However, there seems to be a sort of unspoken deal between the schedulers and the public on this one. They seem to have to put it on regularly (to satisfy what bizarre Masonic shenanigans we don't know) but they do so at such an either early or late hour that it doesn't interfere with the lives of men. So that's all right then. Verily The Bloody Reginald Owen One is the worst version of all.
We shan't wish you a Merry Christmas at this stage, since that would be just daft, but we will instead make an early Christmas wish for a halfway decent version of A Christmas Carol this year (although preferably not the Albert Finney one either, thanks).
And that's Movie! Movie!
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