#34 All I Want for Christmas

 All I Want for Christmas (1991)

directed by Robert Lieberman

written by Thom Eberhardt
Richard Kramer

 

  Hallie's always buying Christmas movies. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. We couldn't get past half an hour of this badly written, poorly acted, and dully filmed movie. The presence of Lauren Bacall only made it a little depressing.

 

 

#15 Scrooge, aka A Christmas Carol

Scrooge (1951)

directed by 

Brian Desmond Hurst

screenplay by 

Noel Langley

We've reached the Christmas movie section of our DVD library and it kicks off with a BANG! This is the version I grew up with and still prefer. We tried the Reginald Owen version and found too many of the edges sanded off. The George C. Scott version that I remembered liking was missing something. I think we found his transition was done poorly - but I'm up to rewatch and reevaluate.

It's Alastair Sim's version, though, we like the most. The movie looks perfect, the roughest edges remain. Bits are added and subtracted to Dickens' material, but the largely serve to add a little depth to Scrooge (and Marley). The supporting cast is terrific. I'm always happy to see Ernest Thesiger turn up in things.

The main thing is that Sim is just so dang good. He gets the mean-hearted Scrooge down perfectly. He could be a great ham - and there's a lot of that in his transformed Scrooge - but not here. There's no mustache twirling, just utter indifference toward the poor and the holiday. He doesn't spit out "And the Union workhouses? Are they still in operation?" He merely asks it with pure Malthusian coldness. The poor are an unsustainable burden who if they wish to live must avail themselves of what society has already provided.

When Scrooge's transformation happens, yeah, Sim is all over-the-top giddiness. It's a little goofy, but it works because he makes you believe he's been suddenly unburdened of twenty-plus years of spiritual and economic miserliness. When he speaks calmly to his maid and later to Fred and his wife, Sim sheds his silliness and portrays real contrition.

I love this movie.

Verdict: even before we put it on, we knew we were keeping it

Michael Hordern and Alastair Sim