A Christmas Carol (1938)

This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

A Brilliant Conflict

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

I HAVE REVIEWED OVER 400 Christmas MOVIES.BEWARE OF BOGUS REVIEWS. SOME REVIEWERS HAVE ONLY ONE REVIEW. WHEN ITS A POSITIVE REVIEW THAT TELLS ME THEY WERE INVOLVED WITH THE PRODUCTION. I HAVE NO AGENDA! I AM HONEST!. I am a child of 1970's. I grew up in the Los Angeles area. On Christmas Eve this film came on at 11:00pm on Channel 11. Every year my family would all gather together to watch this classic! Remember you could only watch this ONCE A YEAR and you had to catch it when it aired! . There was no such thing as Home Video or On Demand. Watching this film with my family is my happiest childhood memory. It was better than a trip to Disneyland. This production of "A Christmas Carol" was produced by MGM in its heyday. The film was shot In October and in theaters by December! So this rushed production over the years has been over shadowed by more lavish productions but casting wise this film has no equal. In this film Scrooge is a crusty old business man in old Victoria England. He seems to thrive on making money and not caring about anything else! He has alienated his only living family member and seems to thrive on making his trusted employee Bob Cratchit life a living hell. On Christmas Eve of course he gets visited by not 3 but 4 ghost. Bob Marley (his late former business partner) and the Ghost of Christmas Past Present and Future. The ghost of course come to teach Scrooge about the joy of not only giving but also the joy of living. This I think is the first film that makes the Ghost come in one night. In the book they come on different nights.What also is great about this version is that its never boring! It moves quit quickly and watching this in black and white gives this a the correct tone. It is a delight! I am not lying at when I say my Christmas Season is not complete without watching this! This film plus "Christmas Vacation" are mandatory viewing in my home. Please if you have never seen this version you should. The Jim Carey version borrowed heavily from this adaption. I beg all of you to watch it with your family. There is something so special to me about this film and viewing it with family.

This rarely seen version is a nice and short treat to the others I have seen over the many years.It is ONLY 69 minutes long which is why it is not broadcast often at all. Since would only stretch to maybe 90 minutes with commercials.This was made in 1938 by MGM, it has not suffered the ravages of time and lost it's crisp film view on my DVD copy.Reginald Owen plays Scrooge and does a good job of playing the Dickens character. No time is wasted on additions to the script and if not it has been shortened. A few things are different, it starts with seeing Scrooge's nephew playing with kids in the snow and he meets Bob Cratchitt's sons, whom they ask to give a message to his father who is at the Scrooge and Marley office. Cratchitt is sacked (fired) from his job for throwing a snowball at Scrooge with a group of boys and Scrooge's top hat getting run over by a carriage. While on visits from the ghosts Scrooge and other characters are made more endearing then other versions. I only give this 9 out of 10 stars because I would have liked this to be longer. I am glad I picked this version on DVD.This is on the 4:1(old TV) ratio not 16:9 (Letter box).

A Christmas Carol is directed by Edwin L. Marin and adapted to screenplay by Hugo Butler from the Charles Dickens story of the same name. It stars Reginald Owen, Gene Lockhart, Kathleen Lockhart, Terry Kilburn and Barry MacKay. Music is by Franz Waxman and cinematography by Sidney Wagner and John F. Seitz.I wonder just how many times A Christmas Carol has been adapted to theatre, film, television, radio or opera? Well it's a lot as we know, but my point being that it's one of those literary works that needs no introduction or plot synopsis. It's as famous as famous can be. With all the many "film" adaptations to view, there's often discussions about which is the best, which is the most loyal to the source and etc etc, what mostly comes through in such discussions is that it's such a brilliant piece of literary work it would take the work of an idiot to mess up the feel good factor come the story's denouement. Thankfully, in spite of tampering with aspects of the source material, Marin's 38 version is as pleasing as a glass of Xmas punch. There are minor irritants here no doubt about it, Scrooge begins to turn from mean miser to good fellow a bit too early, and traditionalists do balk at the changes in the story such as a sex change for one of the ghosts, Cratchit gets the sack, the haunting grimness is missing with the ghost visitations and again etc etc, yet the essence is right and the key points are rightfully included. Given it's a film that runs just under 70 minutes some scenes are rushed, but it's very well performed by the cast (Owen wonderfully caustic as Scrooge after stepping in when Lionel Barrymore's ill health ruled him out of the production) and the joy that comes with the finale is simply impossible to ignore. Like a lot of other people I'm a lover of the Alastair Sim 1951 version, of which this MGM version is often unfairly compared against. For although the 51 film is definitive in its adaptation, and rightfully sits at the top of many people's lists of filmic productions, Marin's film has much to recommend it to being part of your perennial Xmas viewing schedules. 8/10

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.