This is the fourth entry in an ongoing series about the immortal classic and its many adaptations. Other entries can be found here.

Just three years after the British had a go at adapting A Christmas Carol for the silver screen (with fair results), the American production house MGM brought their big studio sensibility to bear on the story. At a nice 69 minutes long, I suspect that one’s appreciation for this moderately-faithful-to-source version is in direct relationship with one’s tolerance for the highly melodramatic ACTING common to old-school studio pictures. Wikipedia insists this version has been widely syndicated on broadcast TV since the 1960s, and has found a regular cable home on TCM for the last 20+ years—no doubt the brisk pacing and the forceful cheeriness of the whole bathetic endeavor have contributed to making this corny 1938 interpretation a popular perennial nostalgia well for generation after generation of rose-glassed drips.

Mostly, it doesn’t work for me. As discussed elsewhere, the Dickens itself traipses dangerously close to over-sentimental mawkishness, and when combined with the histrionics of all the ACTOR-Y ACTING, the screen just crawls with cloying artificiality. I guess some people dig that, specifically, about old movies—but I don’t.

MGM’s A Christmas Carol isn’t a total bust, though. It dwells a little bit longer in Scrooge’s past than the 1935 version did, offering the viewer at least some portrait, if abbreviated, of a younger, happier Scrooge. And the overall impression is of a competent and fairly complete retelling of the tale, though one that misses the point at times, and fails to deliver the emotional punch that other versions do, perhaps by virtue of its incessant schmaltz.

It begins, amusingly enough, by taking some of the advice I had for the 1935 production—with the exuberance and good cheer of the season. Nephew Fred bounces and slides along the lively London streets, even befriending Tiny Tim and another Cratchit bro while making merry on an ice slick. Fred finds Bob Cratchit upon entering his uncle’s countinghouse, and induces him to drink on the job and to add a shovelful of coal to the fire, against Scrooge’s regulations. No wonder Scrooge is in a wretched mood when he stomps into the office.

Fred is there to offer Scrooge an unconditional invitation to Christmas dinner, but this version taints that altruistic entreaty by lamely suggesting that Fred and his fiancee are hard up for some money to get married. Fred assures his uncle that he wants nothing from him, but the seed is planted, and the ground is fertile for such cynicism to take root. In the final moments of the movie, Scrooge makes Fred a partner in his firm, giving him the financial wherewithal to get responsibly hitched. The whole thing comes off as transactional and weird and not in keeping with the spirit of the original.

The other bit of changed setup that bothers me is that after Cratchit gets off work, he gets into a snowball fight with some YOUTS. Attempting to show off for them, he tosses a snowball at a fine gentlemen rounding the corner, who, of course, turns out to be none other than Scrooge himself. Scrooge, in classic Scrooge fashion, is not amused. He fires Cratchit on the spot, going so far as to demand recompense for his ruined hat.

The incident only serves to make Cratchit seem more pathetic, dumb, and ultimately deserving of his unfortunate situation. In the end, Scrooge hires him back and with an increased salary—but the memory of the snowball lingers. It’s certainly not explicit, but the effect is such that Scrooge’s sudden generosity has the slight air of perverse forgiveness about it. Scrooge, in his rambling largesse, goes so far as to declare “everything for everybody,” which does not seem like a promise that is even intended to be kept. But I suppose all of that is in keeping with the tone of the film—almost manic in its insistence that everything that is happening is the biggest, the best, the most made-for-TV.

How It Ranks, Because That’s What’s Important

This is yet another widely-seen adaptation that I hadn’t previously watched. As made clear above, it is not generally to my taste—though I certainly understand the appeal, especially in its high energy, broadly comic presentation. But the heightened sheen of unreality that the film wears—the bathos so antithetical to the hard, lived-in reality of Dickens’ London—is such an unnatural fit for the source material, with its underlying commitment to the real politics of his day, that my discomfort with it stretches beyond taste to something more fundamental. It’s true that I don’t like the style—I also think the style is uniquely ill-fitted to the story. The 1938 adaptation of A Christmas Carol thus earns just one-and-one-half Bah!(s) Humbug! on Brain Iron’s proprietary Bah!(s) Humbug! Scale (patent pending).

The cast is better when judged as an ensemble than when breaking them down individually. It all holds together perfectly well for what it is, but I can’t say I particularly liked any of the performances. And it’s just so not my style, tonally, that I suspect it will ultimately rank rather near the bottom, as it does now. To wit, the rankings so far:

1. Mickey’s Christmas Carol

2. Scrooge (1935)

3. A Christmas Carol (1938)

Various Carols Character Representations — Power Rankings

Ebenezer Scrooge

1. Scrooge McDuck, Mickey’s Christmas Carol

2. Sir Seymour Hicks, Scrooge (1935)

3. Reginald Owen, A Christmas Carol (1938) — Even after adjusting for the hamminess that his director no doubt tried to coax from him with every increasingly deranged, maniacal take, I really don’t like Owen’s performance here. Throw in some very bad aging makeup and facial prosthesis and you have a recipe for a very inhuman character, and not in the good way. Owen’s performance is an unstable concoction—it’s like Johnny Knoxville in his old man makeup channeling Hillary Clinton watching balloons fall while doing the voice of Petyr Baelish from Game of Thrones. If that doesn’t sound right…you’re onto something!

“CHRISTMAS IS A LADDER.”

Bob Cratchit

1. Mickey Mouse, Mickey’s Christmas Carol

2. Donald Calthrop, Scrooge (1935)

3. Gene Lockhart, A Christmas Carol (1938) — This was a bit of a toss-up, between ‘35 and ‘38, for current bottom-of-list. Neither is very good, but Lockhart’s sitcom-y oafishness pushes him down a step. His real-life wife, Kathleen Lockhart, played Mrs. Cratchit, and while their on-screen chemistry is certainly noticeable and good, I just don’t care for this take on this character.

Nephew Fred

1. Robert Cochran, Scrooge (1935)

2. Barry MacKay, A Christmas Carol (1938) — This adaptation gives Fred a bigger role than the others, including the somewhat perplexing character trait of being positively obsessed with sliding down iced-over roadways on his feet as far as he can go, going so far as to challenge no less a gimp than the crutch-wielding Tiny-fuckin’-Tim to beat his record. Real smooth, Fred!

To his, ahh, credit(?), Fred seizes this opportunity to both show the crippled boy a good time and indulge his own recurring, arguably fetishistic desire to slide on ice with a partner.

Seriously. He does this all the time.

Anyway, he’s still better than Donald Duck.

3. Donald Duck, Mickey’s Christmas Carol

The Ghosts

Marley

1. Goofy, Mickey’s Christmas Carol

2. Leo G. Carroll, A Christmas Carol (1938) — The first spirit we see is possibly the least overacted character in the entire film. A perfectly acceptable Marley.

3. Lame Disembodied Voice, Scrooge (1935)

Past

1. Jiminy Cricket, Mickey’s Christmas Carol

2. Ann Rutherford, A Christmas Carol — Despite looking absolutely nothing like Dickens’ description in the book, and rather more like Glinda, The Good Witch of the North, the Ghost of Christmas Past is at least better than the non-attempt made in 1935.

3. Lame Bright Light, Scrooge (1935)

Present

1. Willie the Giant, Mickey’s Christmas Carol

2. Oscar Asche, Scrooge (1935)

3. Lionel Braham, A Christmas Carol (1938) — While this Ghost of Christmas Present is perfectly in keeping with the description in the book, a beard alone cannot overcome a ham-handed performance of Christmas-dinner proportions. Besides, Oscar Asche’s Wikipedia entry includes the following sentence: “In his final years, Asche became obese, poor, argumentative and violent.” So all else being equal, edge to Oscar, obviously.

Future

1. Pete, Mickey’s Christmas Carol

2. D’Arcy Corrigan, A Christmas Carol (1938) — Granted, this is a non-speaking, faceless role that is 90% black robes and 10% ominous pointing, but I think ol’ D’Arcy is going to remain a contender toward the top of the list for a while. Why, you ask? Subtlety of the ominous pointing gesture? A particularly spine-chilling nod? No. It’s because D’Arcy Corrigan, who played Death (functionally) in A Christmas Carol, died at age 75—on Christmas Day.

3. Lame Shadow, Scrooge (1935)

Tiny Tim

1. Philip Frost, Scrooge (1935)

2. Morty or Ferdie Fieldmouse, Mickey’s Christmas Carol

3. Terry Kilburn, A Christmas Carol (1938) — Fuck this Tiny Tim. He’s a pudgy little dude who looks perfectly healthy, save for the brief jump-cut to “his” mangled bottom half. He may be slightly effeminate, but that hardly suggests imminent demise. I want my Tiny Tim barely hanging on, a faltering falsetto trying to scratch out “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” from inside an Iron Lung or between bouts of chemo, not a slightly effete limper with perfectly good coloring.

If you’re watching along at home, next up is 1999’s made-for-TNT adaptation of A Christmas Carol, starring Jean-Luc Picard himself, Patrick Stewart, as Scrooge—available to rent from just about any of the streaming services, or probably on-demand from your cable/TV provider.