Scrooge/A Christmas Carol (Brian Desmond Hurst, 1951)
Alastair Sim and Mervyn Johns as Scrooge and Cratchit
As promised, here’s my review of the 1951 Scrooge, which was the winner in the Movie Classics poll for people’s favourite adaptation. At heart, A Christmas Carol is a ghost story. Some productions almost lose sight of that, amid all the cosy family scenes and picturesque snowscapes. However, the great 1951 British film starring Alastair Sim – known as Scrooge in the UK and A Christmas Carol in the US – keeps to the spirit of the original text, and gives us all the haunted darkness of the story, as well as the wild happiness of its ending. Screenwriter Noel Langley, who went on to script and direct The Pickwick Papers the following year, clearly had a gift for adapting Dickens.
‘A Christmas Carol’ poll results
Thanks very much to all those who have been following my Dickens in December season this month – I hope all those celebrating have had a good Christmas, and would like to wish everyone all the best for 2013. I’ve enjoyed posting about Dickens and discussing films of his work with all those who have commented, even though, once the festivities kicked in, I haven’t quite kept up my original intention to post every day!
Over the month, I’ve been running a poll in the sidebar asking people to vote for their favourite adaptation of A Christmas Carol. There is no doubt at all about the winner – the 1951 version starring Alastair Sim, originally entitled Scrooge in the UK and known as A Christmas Carol in the US. Out of 39 people who voted in the poll, 24 (nearly 62%) went for this version. I’m preparing a review of this great film at the moment – after finally managing to see it in black and white rather than in the horrible colorised versions favoured by TV – and will be posting it in the next couple of days to finish off the month.
The second most popular version in my poll was a long way behind Sim’s performance – Scrooge (1938) starring Reginald Owen, which got 4 votes ( just over 10%). A Christmas Carol (1984) starring George C Scott got just one vote less at 3 votes (nearly 8%) - I haven’t seen this version as yet but aim to do so next year!
The modern version Scrooged (1988), starring Bill Murray, got 2 votes, while the musical version, Scrooge (1970), starring Albert Finney, the Patrick Stewart version, A Christmas Carol (1999) and the animation starring Jim Carrey, A Christmas Carol (2009) got 1 vote each. The other versions I listed got no votes, but one person did vote for “a different version – or none of them, just the book!”
I was slightly saddened that the 1935 British Scrooge starring Seymour Hicks got no votes, since for my money this is an excellent adaptation which looks forward to the Sim portrayal. Maybe the problem is that not enough people have seen it – I’d say it is definitely worth looking out next time you feel like an older Carol. Anyway, thanks to all who took part in the poll and who have supported my Dickens season.
A Christmas Carol (Edwin L Marin, 1938)
Reginald Owen as Scrooge
As a fan of 1930s films, I was really looking forward to seeing this 1938 version of A Christmas Carol. However, I must admit I was rather disappointed with this very short film (just 69 minutes), which cuts out a great deal of the story, including most of its darker elements. Remarkably, this is a version where nobody really seems to be poor. Instead, there is a lot of MGM glamour, including Ann Rutherford improbably cast as an elegant blonde Ghost of Christmas Past, plus some lavish Hollywood snow scenes thrown in. I can see that this adaptation was aimed at a family audience and this is why it has cut out so many of the scary/disturbing elements, but unfortunately this means it has in effect plucked out the heart of Dickens’s story.
Great Expectations (David Lean, 1946)
I didn’t have time to update my blog yesterday and, realistically, my blogging might be a bit hit and miss now as Christmas arrives, but I will try to write new postings as frequently as possible, even if my Dickens in December season ends up stretching into January. Just a few thoughts today on one of the greatest of all Dickens films.
In every adaptation of Great Expectations that I’ve seen (and there have been many, including two in the past year alone, both of which were disappointing, to me anyway), the beginning is one of the best scenes. The sight of the convict looming from behind the tombstone always makes a powerful impression – and its sense of danger is always there in the background behind everything that follows. However, the most unforgettable version of this opening on screen has to be the first scene of David Lean’s famous film, with young Pip (Anthony Wager) running across the windswept Kent marshes, and enduring his nightmare encounter with Magwitch (Finlay Currie).
A Tale of Two Cities (Ralph Thomas, 1958)
Dirk Bogarde as Sydney Carton
In the UK, the 1958 Rank Organisation adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities, starring Dirk Bogarde, is probably better-remembered than the 1935 MGM version. The 1950s film is the one that’s widely available here (there’s even a special edition DVD), whereas the 1930s version has never been released on DVD in the UK at all and has to be specially ordered on import. I think it is a pity that the later version seems to have edged out the Ronald Colman film, which to me is by far the greater of the two, with its lavish production values and strong script. But, having said that, the 1950s version is well worth seeing in its own right, and Bogarde makes the role of Carton his own, giving a performance which is perhaps as moving as Colman’s, though very different. I also like Dorothy Tutin as Lucie – I’ve seen her criticised as too sweet, but she does bring some humour to her quiet portrayal of a heroine who has to spend a lot of time waiting in the background.
Nicholas Nickleby (George Nichols, 1912)
Harry Benham plays Nicholas Nickleby
After enjoying the 1911 version of A Tale of Two Cities, I was interested to see another early silent adaptation of a Dickens novel made the following year. However, I must say I don’t feel George Nichols’ three-reel version of Nicholas Nickleby, one of many short films made by the Thanhouser Film Corporation at this time, works nearly as well. The main problem is that the novel is so much longer, with so many different plot elements to include.
The good news is that the Thanhouser company has put the whole film online. In region 2, it is also included on the BFI’s Dickens Before Sound and as an extra on a newly-restored Studiocanal DVD release of the 1947 Nicholas Nickleby. In region 1, it is as an extra on Thanhouser’s release of the company’s David Copperfield from 1911.
Inevitably, as it tries to cram an enormous book into only around 30 minutes (and some prints are even shorter at 20), this film is really a series of short scenes from the novel and relies on the audience’s knowledge of the book. There are very few intertitles – usually I’m glad if a silent film is sparing on these, as they can break up the flow of the action, but here there are so few that it is hard to follow. Also, any trace of Dickens’ comedy is lost along with his language, and just the melodrama is left. It all feels far more disjointed than the early ATOTC, as it quickly moves from a quick burst of Dotheboys Hall (I was rather surprised to see that Squeers has two eyes in this version!) to a glimpse of the Crummles theatre company and then the attempt to force Madeline Bray into a marriage to an older man – as well as Sir Mulberry Hawk’s evil pursuit of Kate Nickleby.
Mignon Anderson plays Madeline Bray
Most of the acting is highly melodramatic, with Frances Gibson, in particular, playing Kate in a very stagey way and giving an interesting feeling of how a theatrical melodrama around this period must have looked. Mignon Anderson gives a similar performance as Madeline, swooning to the floor. But Harry Benham, as Nicholas, seems surprisingly relaxed and naturalistic. A robust figure with his hair cut short, he doesn’t look at all how I’ve ever pictured the character, or indeed anything like Phiz’s illustrations, but his acting stands out from that of the rest of the cast.
John Martin-Harvey as Sydney Carton in ‘The Only Way’ (1926)
I’d been hoping to write about the 1926 British silent film The Only Way, based on A Tale of Two Cities, as part of my series of Dickens postings – but so far I haven’t managed to see this film. The BFI does have it available to watch online but only to registered universities/colleges and libraries – my local libraries are in the process of registering, but this is likely to take a while.
However, though I haven’t managed to see the film as yet, I couldn’t resist sharing this photograph of the film’s star, Sir John Martin-Harvey, as Sydney Carton. He had also played the role on stage many times and there are many striking photos and even paintings of him as Carton online.
For anyone who wants to see more, here is a link to the Webrarian site, which has a number of pictures of Martin-Harvey as Carton. I will hope to write more about this film in future when I finally get a chance to see it!
Oliver Twist (William J. Cowen, 1933)
I must admit that, overall, the 1933 version of Oliver Twist is one of the weakest Dickens films I’ve seen. It is nowhere near the quality of David Lean’s famous adaptation, or even of the 1922 silent film starring Jackie Coogan which I reviewed here recently. I’m glad to have seen it, and think it has one or two powerful sequences, in particular towards the end of the film – but in general it is a disappointment, and I’m only going to write a brief review.
The film was made by a Poverty Row studio, Monogram Pictures, and does not have the production values of Dickens films made by larger studios. Its budget must have been a tiny fraction of the money spent on the great MGM films of 1935, David Copperfield and A Tale of Two Cities. Despite being only around 70 minutes long and losing much of the novel’s plot, the film, directed by the little-known William J. Cowen, seems painfully slow and stilted much of the time. (It may have originally been longer, as some characters are listed who don’t actually appear in the film.)
A Tale of Two Cities (Jack Conway, 1935)
“I’d wish you a Merry Christmas,” snaps Miss Pross (Edna May Oliver) as she walks past a drunken Sydney Carton (Ronald Colman), staggering through the falling snow. “But it’s plain to see you’ve had it already.” However, Lucie Manette (Elizabeth Allan) has compassion, and drags him into a Christmas night church service - where she whispers that she is lighting a candle for him. Earlier, Carton envied Darnay Lucie’s prayers and pity; now he has them too. It’s plain to see that she isn’t giving up on the wasted life of the lawyer just yet.
None of this is in Dickens’ novel, which indeed has no mention of Christmas at all. Yet it all adds up to one of the many memorable scenes in the 1935 take on his tale of the French revolution – and helps to build up a touching portrait of the relationship that might have been between Lucie and Carton, the central doomed romance of both novel and film.
Dickens films in 1935
I missed a day of ‘Dickens in December’ yesterday, so apologies for that to anyone who dropped by my blog and drew a blank, but I’m currently working on a review of the great 1935 version of A Tale of Two Cities and will hopefully be back with that later today, or tomorrow!
In the meantime, just thought I’d post links, for anyone who has only been visiting my blog this month for the Dickens season, to the two reviews I did earlier this year of the other Hollywood Dickens movies released in that same year – Stuart Walker’s Mystery of Edwin Drood and George Cukor’s David Copperfield. (The fourth Dickens release of that year was the British Scrooge, directed by Henry Edwards, which I reviewed in the last few days.)
I’m not sure why there was such a flowering of Dickens movies in that one year – but there were also many other great classic and historic adaptations around that time, so presumably it was part of that whole picture.
