A Christmas Carol (1999)
This is the fifth entry in an ongoing series about the immortal classic and its many adaptations. The entire series (in progress) can be found here.
Perusing the long list of adaptations of A Christmas Carol, it’s easy to see why a TV executive in 1999 thought the world was about due for another realistic, grounded take on the Dickens original. After what many consider to be the best, definitive version was released in 1951 (which we’ll get to eventually, I’m sure), it was nearly twenty years before the next serious attempt was made with 1970’s musical interpretation starring Albert Finney and Alec Guinness. 1984 saw George C. Scott’s take on Scrooge after a decade-plus of animated renditions featuring Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, and Walter Matthau. In the fifteen years between George C. Scott and Patrick Stewart, adaptations featured The Muppets, The Flinstones, The Jetsons, and Brer Rabbit, not to mention Bill Murray’s decidedly not-grounded Scrooged. And now, in 2019, we’re about to see the BBC debut another grim, live-action version of the story after a couple decades of animation and a singing Kelsey Grammer. So it seems that every fifteen or twenty years since 1935 the market demands another couple of more realistic hours of Scrooge and his spectral pals. “God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion,” Thomas Jefferson said about A Christmas Carol. The tree of Dickens must be refreshed, from time to time, with the blood of patriots and Tiny Tims, its natural manure. Every generation needs its own A Christmas Carol—in 1999, the sacred duty fell to none other than Jean-Luc Picard.
Patrick Stewart gives a very-nearly perfect performance in an adaptation that adheres nearer to the text than any I’ve reviewed so far. Stewart’s natural authority and the air of sheer competence he projects couches Scrooge’s cruelty in something concrete about the character—his antipathy seems to spring from what he truly believes about the world, and the way the people of that world fail to meet it on its own terms.
The movie opens on Jacob Marley’s sparsely-attended funeral, seven years before the events of the story—a scene invented by this production, but a welcome one. Scrooge, the only mourner, raises a glass to his dead partner, lamenting the loss of his partner’s “shrewd brain and keen eye”—the loss to the firm! Of his partner’s capable body parts! Some eulogy.
“We went through some hard times together, but we pulled through! And we thrived on the idleness of others. Rest content, Jacob, the firm we built together will prosper—I promise,” he assures Marley, committing himself to a life of toil and profit, particularly off the slack left hanging by the contemptible laziness of everyone else. Scrooge’s absolute materialism at his friend’s funeral grounds his misanthropy in business terms. If he succeeds, it is because he works hard where others will not—a self-made man congratulating and comforting himself that deserve has got everything to do with it. Any moment spent not at work is a moment of wasted profit potential, and every hard-wrung bit of profit is a testament to the sloth or idiocy of someone else.
We get all of this before the opening credits are done—there is a seven-year time jump, and then it’s onto the usual opening scene in Scrooge’s office, with the visit from the nephew and the charity-collectors and all the rest. Scrooge’s condescension toward all of them is entirely of a piece with what was established in the short funeral flashback, and it makes him seem less like a cartoonish grouch and more like a fully-realized asshole. It’s a neat trick.
It also makes his transformation all the more impactful when it comes. This Scrooge isn’t just in need of a bit of holiday cheer, or a quick reminder that he loved once. He must be made to unlearn everything that has animated him for as long as he thinks he can remember. It isn’t enough to tell him that he ought to care for his fellow man, or else be damned himself—Scrooge needs to be shown that real value exists outside the bounds of his balance sheet, and that loving the world and his fellow humans is something he can do selfishly, to his own benefit and to everyone else’s, too.
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Something else I’d like to mention about this version is that it’s the first I’ve seen that does something interesting with the tiles around Scrooge’s home fireplace, which get quite a vivid description in the original Dickens. To wit:
It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and brood over it, before he could extract the least sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel. The fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. There were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh’s daughters, Queens of Sheba, angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts; and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient Prophet’s rod, and swallowed up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first, with power to shape some picture on its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a copy of old Marley’s head on every one. “Humbug!” said Scrooge; and walked across the room.
The movie does a neat little bit of effects work, bringing the Cain and Abel scene to life with Marley’s face appearing over Cain’s, and then again superimposed over what might be a depiction of the Last Supper, though I’m not sure. It also helps to elevate the unease Scrooge is feeling, playing up the terror of what he’s about to experience, even as he dismisses it all as little more than his senses playing tricks on him.
It may not seem like much, but I was delighted by the inclusion of the tile detail, having really enjoyed the passage in the book. It’s one example of many small things that contribute to making this adaptation worthy of its source in a way that most of the others have not been.
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A brief note about the lived-in quality of the writing in this adaptation, if you’ll permit me. A great deal of the dialogue is (appropriately) lifted straight from Dickens, but that which isn’t is very convincingly of the world these characters inhabit—even the bits that are utterly indecipherable. When the charity-seekers meet Scrooge, one of them asks Scrooge, “May I press your cudiles, sir?” Having absolutely no idea what in the world a cudile is, nor how one would go about pressing one, and being curious about such things, I set about Googling to find out. This search brought me here, where I found out that no one has any idea what it means.
You are not alone in your bafflement. A search online shows that the question has been asked several times with no response. I’m stumped, too, as is every expert I’ve asked, though there are a couple of hints. (…) No such word is in the English language, of that I’m pretty sure. Dickens certainly didn’t write that line into his story.
(…)
I can take this no further myself because I’m way outside my comfort zone when it comes to obscure slang. With the death of the key players [the director and the screenwriter], it seems improbable that the truth will ever be known.
The whole article is worth reading, if you’re at all curious about his methods for trying to track down the origin of the phrase. But I just love, in a writer-y sorta way, how it really doesn’t matter at all if anyone ever really figures it out. There’s an authenticity to the authorial voice, and how it’s articulated by the character, that allows the words to transcend pesky specific meaning and just communicate.
How It Ranks, Because That’s What’s Important
This is my favorite so far, by quite a wide margin. It stays close to the heart of the original in plot, dialogue, and, crucially, in spirit. I declare that the Jean-Luc Picard-helmed Christmasship Carolprise is worthy of four and three-quarter Bah!(s) Humbug!, a quarter-bug withheld because of the sound the quills make on the page whenever Cratchit or Scrooge is working. That sound alone would have prevented me from ever writing a single goddamn word. Like plague-ridden rats scratching at the bedpost next to your head in your sleep, that sound is. Just a throw-yourself-from-a-tall-building-through-glass-to-get-away kinda sound.
Like nails on a chalkboard? No! Like pen on paper, apparently!
A Christmas Carol (1999)
Various Carols Character Representations — Power Rankings
Ebenezer Scrooge
Patrick Stewart, A Christmas Carol (1999) — Stewart is just wonderful in this role. As mentioned above, his obvious competence really serves the character well, the same sort of fully-formed professional that was required of him as captain of the USS Enterprise on Star Trek: The Next Generation. That said, there is one moment that, while I get what they were going for, doesn’t work for me. When Scrooge wakes in his bed after his long night with the spirits, he is so overcome that he begins to laugh. In the process of rediscovering his laugh, he gasps and chokes like a man trying to breathe in the vacuum of space. I get it! He has not laughed like this, laughed for any reason but mere spite, in many years. But this—this is a bit much.
Scrooge McDuck, Mickey’s Christmas Carol
Sir Seymour Hicks, Scrooge (1935)
Reginald Owen, A Christmas Carol (1938)
It’s television, Patrick! There’s nobody in the nosebleeds!
Bob Cratchit
Richard E. Grant, A Christmas Carol (1999) — This is a very good Bob Cratchit. He doesn’t give off the dopiness of the earlier ones, hewing more to the truly decent man that is portrayed in the book. He loves his kids, deeply appreciates his wife, and cares for his fellow man. This Cratchit is a deserving recipient of Scrooge’s generosity (of wallet and spirit) upon his reawakening, rather than a pathetic victim of circumstance who wins the lottery in the end.
Mickey Mouse, Mickey’s Christmas Carol
Donald Calthrop, Scrooge (1935)
Gene Lockhart, A Christmas Carol (1938)
Nephew Fred
Dominic West, A Christmas Carol (1999) — McNulty from The Wire is appropriately jovial and big-hearted in this role, a bouncing, smiling presence just here to invite his uncle in.
Robert Cochran, Scrooge (1935)
Barry MacKay, A Christmas Carol (1938)
Donald Duck, Mickey’s Christmas Carol
The Ghosts
Marley
Goofy, Mickey’s Christmas Carol
Bernard Lloyd, A Christmas Carol (1999) — Lloyd plays a wonderful Marley, his version very much freighted with the weight of his chains. His despair is palpable, his sorrow absolute. He and Stewart play well off each other, their old relationship spectrally rekindled and believable.
Leo G. Carroll, A Christmas Carol (1938)
Lame Disembodied Voice, Scrooge (1935)
Past
Jiminy Cricket, Mickey’s Christmas Carol
Joel Grey, A Christmas Carol (1999) — The character design here is pretty jarring, but in a way that works and is in keeping with the weirdness described in the book. I approve.
Ann Rutherford, A Christmas Carol (1938)
Lame Bright Light, Scrooge (1935)
Present
Willie the Giant, Mickey’s Christmas Carol
Desmond Barrit, A Christmas Carol (1999) — Something about the way this character is described in the book lends itself to surprisingly consistent depictions across many adaptations. I like this version. There are a lot of lines given to the Ghost of Christmas Present in every version that make the Beavis and Butthead in me giggle, and this one doesn’t disappoint on that level, either. Scrooge: “Why do you sprinkle water on the food—is there some blessing in it?” Ghost of Christmas Present, smiling broadly: “There is—my own!” Me: “Huh-huh-huh-hehe. Huh.”
Oscar Asche, Scrooge (1935)
Lionel Braham, A Christmas Carol (1938)
Future
Pete, Mickey’s Christmas Carol
D’Arcy Corrigan, A Christmas Carol (1938)
Tim Potter, A Christmas Carol (1999) — For some reason, the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come looks like an overgrown Jawa from Star Wars. The glowing eyes are bullshit.
Lame Shadow, Scrooge (1935)
Tiny Tim
Philip Frost, Scrooge (1935)
Ben Tibber, A Christmas Carol (1999) — Another ho-hum Tiny Tim. Will there ever be a Tiny Tim that really makes his presence felt? Is this part just too helplessly a cipher, too stooped a Dickensian nothing of a character to ever really have an impact? It’s not looking good.
Morty or Ferdie Fieldmouse, Mickey’s Christmas Carol
Terry Kilburn, A Christmas Carol (1938)
Next up for review is Disney’s and the Jim Henson Company’s collaboration on a feature-length musical swipe at the text, with The Muppet Christmas Carol, available to stream on Disney+ and rentable just about everywhere else.
