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For a 1938 production, A Christmas Carol is actually
fairly nice. The picture is warm and pretty good considering its
age. The sets are sometimes obviously sets, but their well furnished
and we have no problem believing we’re in 1843 London. The
acting is often stylized, as was common for the early age of film,
and the music constantly reminds us we are watching a very old
film. All of these foibles, however, can be forgiven and enjoyed
in spite of.
What can’t be forgiven happens to be the one area that didn’t
need to be problematic in the first place – the script.
And I’m not talking about awkward dialogue, although there’s
some of it there. I refer to the manipulation of the most important
aspect of the text – the transformation of Scrooge. Scrooge’s
rebirth is handled much more heavy-handedly and much less affectingly
than it should have been.
First of all, the scrip makes a lot of unnecessary, although not
necessarily unwelcome, changes to the original text that ups the
ante of Scrooge’s change. For example, early in the story
Bob Cratchit (Gene Lockhart) joins some children throwing snowballs
and ends up throwing one at Scrooge (Reginald Owen). Bob is then
fired so that, at the end, his restoration will be all the greater.
But it doesn’t feel greater when it does come.
Similarly, Fred (Barry MacKay) is not yet married, but only engaged.
The only thing holding back his marriage is sufficient funds.
This allows the post-transformation Scrooge to actually show that
has forgiven them by blessing their marriage by paying for it.
I like the idea that Scrooge’s change is all the more powerful,
but it just doesn’t work here. It feels too contrived and
too much narrative weight for the time it’s given. Basically,
I think these additions actually work to undermine the overall
effect of Scrooge’s change.
The script is heavy-handed in some other ways as well, which actually
aren’t as bad. We get extra speeches from Fred, Marley,
the first spirit, and others about the spirit of love and Christmas.
Sometimes they’re nice, but at other times it feels like
they’re just trying to pound the message home.
The biggest problem, however, is the transformation itself. Scrooge
is rarely humbled by the first two spirits and hardly scared by
the third. The climax of his change does not come as a progressive
humbling that culminates after the third has left and he realizes
he still has Christmas before him. Rather, it comes fairly suddenly
after traveling with the second spirit and it feels like the motivations
behind his change are that he is simply missing out on all the
fun at the Christmas parties.
The bottom line – Scrooge’s transformation isn’t
nearly as sincere or as moving as it might have been. And as far
as this story goes, that’s really the most important part.
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