The Christmas Carols

Undoubtedly, Charles Dickens' classic novella A Christmas Carol is one of the most frequently adapted stories for cinema.  Having been adapted literally dozens of times as theatrical feature films, not mention the countless television series Christmas specials to apply their characters to the story, it ranks with the likes of Dracula and Frankenstein in sheer numbers of reinterpretation.  Some of the most famous include the critically-acclaimed 1951 adaptation starring Alastair Sim as the eponymous miser, Ebenezer Scrooge, later remade as an Academy Award-winning animated short, the kid-friendly THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL with Michael Caine as Scrooge and MICKEY'S A CHRISTMAS CAROL starring Scrooge McDuck (as who else?), and the most recent major adaptation, the big-budget DISNEY'S A CHRISTMAS CAROL (2009) starring comedian Jim Carrey as Scrooge and all three Ghosts of Christmas.  Regrettably, I do not have the time to talk about all the screen versions of Dickens' most beloved work, but I'll here cover several of the major versions, including a couple of my favorites, and some that are less well made.

THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL  (1992)
Directed by Brian Henson
Starring Michael Caine, Steven Mackintosh
Muppets: 
Steven Whitmire as Kermit the Frog, Rizzo the Rat, Bean Bunny, Beaker & others
Dave Goelz as Gonzo the Great, Waldorf, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew & others
Frank Oz as Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Sam the Eagle, Animal & others
Jerry Nelson as  Robin, Statler & others
Rated G
Not only one of the best adaptations of A Christmas Carol, THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL was also one of the last projects considered by The Muppets creator and special effect whiz Jim Henson before his death in 1990.  Directed by Jim's son, Brian Henson, and released through Walt Disney Pictures, it's one of the best Muppet feature films, and also one of the strangest.  It follows the source material pretty closely, despite as a musical with comic threads, with moments like a Muppet mentioning his "little Gwen, her lungs aren't right," to explain to Scrooge why he fell behind in his mortgage payments, and I think this would also be the only Muppet movie to date to actually deal with themes of Muppet "death".
The non-Muppet Michael Caine takes the lead as the miserly moneylender, Ebenezer Scrooge, whose story is narrated by Gonzo the Great in the role of Charles Dickens, accompanied by Rizzo the Rat, who is doubtful of Mr. Dickens' Dickens-ness.  After leaving his lowly clerk, Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit, to close up the offices on Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by the chain-clad ghosts of his deceased business partners, Jacob and Robert Marley (Statler and Waldorf, respectively), who alert him to the coming of three spirits as a chance of avoiding their hellish fate (Muppets, and they've been damned).  The Ghost of Christmas Past, an original and elaborate creation from Jim Henson Studios, shows him the error of his ways in his youth; the Ghost of Christmas Present, another original, in the form of an oversized, full-body felt Muppet, shows him the joys of Christmas Day itself; and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, a standard, but very large, Grim Reaper creation shows him the sadness of a future in his current course.
Caine holds his own opposite the Muppets, who he treats like a lesser race, ruthlessly exploiting the starving little felt guys (a little bunny is actually shown shivering while wrapped in newspapers on Christmas Eve, but most Muppeteers are well-known for loathing the "Bean Bunny" character anyway).  In the final big musical number, "With a Thankful Heart," a shop sign can be seen in the background that reads "Micklewhite's" which is a reference to Caine's actual given name, Maurice Micklewhite, which is actually a fittingly Muppet-esque name.  Tiny Tim, who is cloying and insufferable little character anyway, is appropriately played by Robin, Kermit's nephew, who happens to be the worst Muppet, so there's that.  He still dies and is buried in the Christmas Yet to Come segment, which is a little strange.
Be sure to stick with the theatrical edition though, as opposed to the extended cut which was the only available version on the VHS release and is also the Fullscreen version on the DVD edition.  I guess that it's not a huge alteration, but the extended version has an extra musical number, "When Love Is Gone" which puts the whole thing to a halt.  That one part practically ruined the whole movie for me when I was a young child.

DISNEY'S A CHRISTMAS CAROL  (2009)
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Starring Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Robin Wright, Bob Hoskins, Cary Elwes
PG for scary sequences and images.
I went on my first date to this movie in November 2009, but for anyone who's seen this movie, it's clear that that would-be relationship simply didn't get far at all (it's not my fault; the selection of movies in 2009 was very poor as a result of the 2008 Writers Guild Strike).  This most recent of the major adaptations of A Christmas Carol is very unfortunate, because it has an awful lot going for it, but the rug is constantly being ripped out from under the feet of those good things without justified reason, to say the least.  Directed by Robert Zemeckis, who recently made a strong return to live-action filmmaking in 2012's FLIGHT, but who has been a driving force behind fully motion-capture animated films through his company ImageMovers Digital ever since his 2004 adaptation of THE POLAR EXPRESS, this version of Dickens' tale takes no major deviations from the traditional plot, although it deviate severely in tone and some very strange new details.  Jim Carrey plays Scrooge, both young and old, as well as the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come, and while the shared performer is apparent (with the exception of the relatively vague Christmas Yet to Come), even acknowledged once, he gets by all right, as does Gary Oldman, starring as Bob Cratchit, Jacob Marley and Tiny Tim, with his best moments as Bob Cratchit.  The real stars though are the animators, who while never quite ascending beyond the infamous "uncanny valley" effect, exceed their capabilities on THE POLAR EXPRESS and BEOWULF (also directed by Zemeckis).  Some of the effect is lost without the 3D though (it was released only a month before AVATAR made 3D big), which was used to great effect in the many "fly-through" sequences.
The best thing about this version of A Christmas Carol, marketed as DISNEY'S A CHRISTMAS CAROL to differentiate it from the rest, but not animated at Disney Studios, is its proper use of Victorian culture and carols, filled with old-time church carols and a great original song, "God Bless Us Everyone" sung by Andrea Bocelli, and the street scenes of the marketplace are interesting.
Now for the stuff that just ruins it; Robert Zemeckis had made it clear that he did not believe that A Christmas Carol had been made for the screen yet in the way that Dickens imagined it.  Well, clearly, Zemeckis is convinced that Dickens first and foremost wrote his novella as a full-on Gothic horror in the manner of his contemporaries, Dracula and Frankenstein.  This version is just to occupied by morbidity, to the extent that it distracts from everything else, such as Marley's jaw ripping wide open (it fell open on his chest in the book, but there was nothing said about his cheeks ripping apart and his jaw totally dislocating) and then in a cheap gross-out comic moment, Marley manually manipulates his jaw, completely rendering his powerful words irrelevant.  There's also a truly bizarre moment when Scrooge shrinks down to a couple inches and speaks with a high-pitched voice.  I don't know why.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL  (1984)
Directed by Clive Donner
Starring George C. Scott, Frank Finlay, David Warner, Roger Rees, Edward Woodward
PG for unspecified reasons (contains some scary moments, mild language and thematic elements).
Usually, I am dismissive of made-for-TV movies, perhaps out of a cinephile's snobbery, but I'm fond of this TV movie adaptation of A Christmas Carol, starring George C. Scott as Scrooge.  Scott is one of the great actors and makes for a truly excellent Scrooge, but he also shares the screen with an excellent British cast besides, including David Warner (the ex-cop bodyguard in TITANIC) as Bob Crachit and an excellent rendition of the Ghost of Christmas Present by Edward Woodward, both frightening and jovial in perfect measure.  My favorite though, is Frank Finlay (who played the buffoonish Porthos in Richard Lester's excellent THE THREE MUSKETEERS in 1973) as Jacob Marley, the best Marley I've seen, who bears all the pain and pathos of such a character.  It's a simple adaptation, without many flourishes, but a aptly produced one, and one of my favorites.


SCROOGE  (1951)
Directed by Brian Desmond Hurst
Starring Alastair Sim, Michael Hordern, Mervyn Johns, George Cole, Carol Marsh, Kathleen Harrison
Not Rated
This British film released as A CHRISTMAS CAROL in the United States is often considered the greatest of all the adaptations of the book, starring a particularly memorable performance by Alastair Sim as the title character.  Sim is an excellent Scrooge, although I'm reluctant to call him the best.  The argument that the movie itself is the best one though, is a strong one.  What it brings to mind most for me, is its "Ghost of Christmas Past" sequence.  The Ghost, played by Michael Dolan (the Ghost of Christmas Past varies the most by far from adaptation to adaptation compared to other characters, due to a strange and implicit description in the book), is an unremarkable one, but what is usually a segment ran briskly through to show how Scrooge became the man he is is here a very interesting and very well developed story about the young idealist turned into the odious miser.