'Tis the season to watch A Christmas Carol. At least seven of them.

[tomchick]

Title	'Tis the season to watch A Christmas Carol. At least seven of them.
Author	Chris Hornbostel
Posted in	Movie reviews
When	December 12, 2019

Since I was a wee tot, I’ve been enthralled by Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, his 1843 five-chapter novella, and particularly its filmed adaptations. I’ve seen them all..

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EDITED by me: click the front page link for the article now. :)

[Mark_Asher]

What about Scrooged with Bill Murray?

Also Fonzie’s An American Christmas Carol?

[Don_Quixote]

Or the Muppet version?

[crispywebb]

@Don_Quixote

Or the Muppet version?

I was about to write this. I think this is my only point of reference for the story.

Edit: Oh! Can’t forget Mickey Mouse.

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EDITED again by me, so that the front page doesn’t look weird in Disqus.

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@Mark_Asher

What about Scrooged with Bill Murray?

Also Fonzie’s An American Christmas Carol?

I mentioned them!

@triggercut

But also loose adaptations including short cartoon versions, versions with Mickey Mouse or Mr. Magoo, alternate settings that kind of work (“An American Christmas Carol” with Henry Winkler is almost good; 1989’s “Scrooged” on the other hand is in my opinion a noisy, soulless mess).

What I aim to do here, however, is review and critique the 7 major filmed/animated versions of the Dickens novella that at least try to hew closely to the original story.

[BrianRubin]

Here for the review of the Albert Finney version, which is my fave.

[Charlatan]

@BrianRubin

Here for the review of the Albert Finney version, which is my fave.

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Funny, I thought there’d be more to it.

[BrianRubin]

No I’m just tagging into the thread so I can be here when the review drops.

[Navaronegun]

Tagging. Also voting for the American Christmas Carol, starring Henry Winkler too. Was just ruminating about that last week…

[Rock8man]

I haven’t read the story or seen any of these movies, so now I want to track down the story so I can follow along.

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@Rock8man

I haven’t read the story or seen any of these movies, so now I want to track down the story so I can follow along.

Good call!

Here’s the original from Project Gutenberg, with the illustrations:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46/46-h/46-h.htm

And here it is in e-book formats:

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Here’s a great unabridged podcast reading of all five staves:

Podcasts | Pandora

And here’s Neil Gaiman from 2013 doing a reading of Dickens’ own edited version for the NY Public Library:

Podcast #41: Neil Gaiman Reads "A Christmas Carol" | The New York Public Library

[Cormac]

Speaking of christmas carol, I’m quite fond of the Doctor Who adaptation, though I know that’s only one of the million stories inspired / based on Christmas Carol and thus has no place in your viewing list.

[BiggerBoat]

Totally on board for this thread. I’ve always had a pretty strong affection for A Christmas Carol, and I have opinions on the various adaptations. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

[Charlatan]

I’ll also give a thumbs up to this thread. I sent a link to my wife, who runs a theatre company and who has written a musical version of A Christmas Carol and she also gave the historical context a couple of thumbs ups!

[Jason_Levine]

@triggercut

There’s one other thing to be said about “A Christmas Carol”: as undeniably great a short fiction work as it is, the final “stave” feels weirdly truncated and perfunctory. In the book, there’s this huge buildup to Scrooge’s conversion, and then we get there and it feels like Dickens decided he needed to wrap things up in the final act with 1,000 words or less. It’s a shame, because it slightly undercuts all the details and story beats up to that point.

I think one reason the final stave is perfunctory is that Dickens was facing a very tight publishing deadline in terms of getting it out before Christmas. As it was, the book was published on Dec. 19, 1843 and the famous line, “and to Tiny Tim who did not die” was added during the printing process.

[vinraith]

Thank you very much, thank you very much…

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Holy hell is that song an earworm.

[vinraith]

Right? It’s positively evil.

Also, this is a fantastic little project and I look forward to reading your thoughts on all of these. I’ve seen most of them many, many times (with the exceptions of the 30’s versions and the '09) and have definite opinions of my own…