Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

A Christmas Carol Blu-ray Movie Review

Considered by many fans to be the definitive version of Dickens' immortal classic, the 1951 British film debuts on Blu-ray.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 6, 2009

It’s probably next to impossible for most of us to imagine a time when there wasn’t an Ebenezer Scrooge, so ingrained has that indelible character become in our collective consciousness. And yet that despicable (if lovable) curmudgeon who made “Bah, humbug!” a retort of renown has only been around since 1843, a veritable blink of the eye in literary historical terms. Nonetheless, I think you’d be hard pressed to find a more influential tome than Charles Dickens’ “little” Christmas novella, a book which manages to sum up sin and redemption more eloquently than virtually any other example one could name. The book quickly became source material for theatrical, and later film, adaptations. I can’t say for sure what my first exposure to this venerable source material was; it may have indeed been a television broadcast of this 1951 Alastair Sim version, released in the UK as Scrooge (the title it bears on film here, if not on the packaging), and then in the US as A Christmas Carol. Or it could have been Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol, the seasonal television special that ran regularly throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s. But I do have incredibly wonderful and almost palpable memories of my sister taking me to the 1970 Albert Finney Scrooge when I was a kid. I fell in love with the story, the performances and, yes, even Leslie Bricusse’s often lamented score, and as we left the theater in the hush of winter in downtown Seattle, a huge and furious snowstorm started, imprinting my memory cells with the frosty clarity that only deep December can bring. It’s something I’ll probably never forget. Film lovers have had a veritable glut of Christmas Carol versions to love or hate through the years, and this 1951 production typically comes in at or near the top of most fans’ favorite lists. If I’m about to commit sacrilege in criticizing some aspects of Sim’s interpretation of Scrooge, I would be the last person to ever argue with the compelling emotional power this version still manages to convey.

The best Scrooge ever? Lots of people think so about Alastair Sim.

A cursory glance at IMDb lists well over 50 versions of the property (and that’s only the ones that are linked to keywords “Christmas Carol”), from the earliest days of silent cinema to this very year’s Disney 3D fest version (which is not receiving uniformly excellent reviews). Television fans have had their own plethora of adaptations including great performances by such stalwarts as George C. Scott and Patrick Stewart. Yet time and again, lovers of this story return to the Sim version as the non pareil touchstone to which all others must be compared. What is it about this 1951 version that so appeals to people? Personally I think some of it may well be, like Christmas itself, wrapped in the folds of a certain nostalgia, especially for those who were introduced to the story via this adaptation. But this Christmas Carol does offer many delights, chief among them a screenplay which mines large portions of dialogue from Dickens’ original novella and hews very closely to the source material throughout. This is also one of the versions which gives us a rather large swath of Scrooge’s backstory, including some scenes which are routinely omitted from at least some other versions (his sister’s death, for instance, something that’s only mentioned in passing in the Finney version).

Director Brian Desmond Hurst, certainly (no disrespect intended) not one of the best known of British directors, here mounts a fluid and beautifully designed production which perfectly captures the ambience of mid-19th century London. Some analysts have said, perhaps rightly, that Dickens’ main argument in his work (not only in Christmas Carol) was an almost anti-Capitalist screed in which he appealed to people to refind their common humanity in the face of rampant greed and profit lust. Hurst here details that proclivity in the great opening scenes where Scrooge’s love of money is summed up in just a few passing comments, all of which of course come back later to literally haunt him.

Hurst also elicits uniformly fine performances from the remarkable supporting cast, if Michael Hordern’s Jacob Marley is a bit too reserved for his own ghostly good. But others, most notably Mervyn Johns and (especially) the great Hermione Baddeley as Bob and Mrs. Cratchit, are simply perfect in their roles and indeed achieve iconic status that other performers have obviously modeled their subsequent work on. George Cole (who’s featured on the fun, if anecdotal, commentary) is also fine as the young Ebenezer, though the physical disparity between him and Sim is disconcerting (one reason that that 1970 version was so convincing is that it utilized a still young actor—Finney—and made him up to be the old Scrooge). Glyn Dearman’s Tiny Tim is thankfully less saccharine than a lot of other portrayals and Francis de Wolff’s Spirit of Christmas Present is suitably boisterous and cheerful.

Which brings us to Sim. I am probably about to raise the hackles of many longtime fans of the film when I say that Sim, as excellent as he is in parts of this film, simply gets to the redemptive aspects of Scrooge’s transformation too early to ever bring the complete emotional resonance that this property can deliver (and I’m the first to admit I well up with man-tears at many versions of A Christmas Carol). While Sim’s opening gambit as the miserly Scrooge is perfectly handled, he’s instantly too timid and too touched by his memories once the Spirit of Christmas Past (Michael Dolan) appears. Notice how rueful Scrooge becomes during the Fezziwig scene, when he’s obviously regretful about his treatment of Cratchit when seeing how well his own boss treated him a generation earlier. There’s no hint of self- anger or the defensiveness that springs from embarrassment in Sim’s portrayal, something that several other actors have brought to similar scenes in other adaptations. But even before this telling moment, as early as the first appearance of the Spirit of Christmas Past, Sim conveys a certain immediate softening of Scrooge's attitude that argues against his heart having been very cold to begin with. This same lack of emotional layering hampers Sim’s performance at least up until his “death” scene, when he manages to plumb depths of terror and penance and anchors Scrooge’s conversion in some palpably real emoting. There’s nothing patently wrong in Sim’s portrayal of Scrooge, it’s just that with so many alternate depictions of this same character one begins to notice (perceived) shortcomings, rightly or wrongly, that perhaps argue against the frequently repeated declamation that the Sim portrayal is the be-all end-all of filmic Ebenezers.

And yet there is real emotion here, especially in the lovely denouement, which, again unlike many other adaptations, focuses more squarely on Scrooge’s reconciling with his nephew and the nephew’s wife than with the Cratchits (though that is handled in a brief coda covered by the narrator). When Scrooge shuffles into nephew Fred’s home on Christmas Day and interrupts a parlor gathering, it’s a beautifully crafted scene that may indeed bring a lump to the throat of most viewers. The magic of A Christmas Carol is that it communicates redemption so forcefully that audience members themselves may undergo their own spiritual rebirths simply by watching it, and if that isn’t something of a holiday miracle in and of itself, I don’t know what is.

A Christmas Carol Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

There is a substantial upgrade in image quality on this new 1080p/MPEG-2 encoded Blu-ray from even VCI's excellently restored DVD release of a couple of years ago. I was immediately struck by the brilliant contrast, which offered wonderfully inky blacks and a similarly excellent grayscale. Whites bristle nicely in the snow scenes and never bloom. Sharpness and clarity are quite good as well, though the film grain does occasionally devolve into noisiness at times. All of this is not to say the source elements are not without their problems. Though VCI touts that it went back to 35mm source elements, which is certainly laudable, there doesn't appear to have been any really meticulous cleaning on this transfer. While the bulk of the film looks quite splendid, videophiles will still be able to notice scratches, flecks, dirt and debris from time to time.

There is one rather strange anomaly on this transfer, and it's something I mentioned in a previous review for another site on another VCI product, their SD-DVD release of Burke's Law, the old Gene Barry television series. Occasionally on that release as well as A Christmas Carol, motion suddenly "jumps," as if a frame or two is missing, though the soundtrack continues apace and there are no missing seconds from the timecode if you engage "Display" on your BD player (I mention this only for readers who may think it's a fault with the BD itself rather than the transfer). A good example of this (just one of several) on A Christmas Carol is near the end of the film, at circa 1:18:17 and again at 1:18:22, when Scrooge is at the window saying "What a beautiful morning" and obviously lurches. I guess it might be a missing frame, but one would expect the sound to skip there, which it doesn't. Another moment is at 1:22:18 where one would think the piano playing in the parlor would be slightly interrupted if it's missing frames we're dealing with. I have to wonder if this is an authoring problem, or perhaps a playback issue endemic to PS3's. I did get some emails after my Burke's Law review stating that other owners of the title were experiencing the same thing. If this had been a port over from a PAL transfer I could almost understand the timeshifting, but since VCI states they've gone back to 35mm masters to do this new Blu-ray, I'm frankly at a loss to explain it.

A Christmas Carol Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Unfortunately, the audio options on this Blu-ray are not up to the standards set by the generally excellent image quality. Two Dolby Digital mixes are included, the original mono track as well as a repurposed 5.1 surround mix. Both choices sadly leave quite a bit to be desired. I frankly couldn't stand listening to the 5.1 for very long, as it is saddled with such bad chorusing and reverb that I personally found it unlistenable. That same chorusing effect is still apparent, though less bothersome, in the original mono track. The original track, while not egregiously damaged, has noticeable hiss and an overall boxy sound that is evident throughout both dialogue and underscore, though that problem is widely variable. For instance, the opening bass-heavy brass music sounds pretty acceptable, but then the first patch of dialogue has an over- reverbed sound. That use of reverb is similarly variable, and seems to abate once the film moves into its more intimate, interior sections. The 5.1 mix manages a few ambient surround moments, notably some of the music and foley effects during the Spirits' appearances, but there are really no "wow" moments in the surround repurposing. LFE is non-existent and indeed pretty much any low frequencies are missing from this overly compressed sounding soundtrack.

A Christmas Carol Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

VCI did a superb job a couple of years ago with their 2 DVD release of this title, which offered some wonderful bonuses, including a whole second version of the property (a 1935 Seymour Hicks starrer, also called Scrooge). For some reason VCI has chosen to offer this Blu-ray on a 25G disc, meaning bonuses on the Blu-ray itself are limited to the DVD commentary by Cole being ported over and the British and US trailers included (as well as a VCI promo), and a pop-up trivia track.

A bonus DVD, which is a nice touch, offers the feature on SD-DVD (and you'll immediately notice the downgrade in contrast and sharpness, even upconverted) with the feature in its original aspect ratio and also rematted for 16:9 widescreen. It's actually not the worst repurposing of an Academy ratio film for widescreen that I've seen, but heads do roll at times (or at least get their tops chopped off), and I just have to wonder about the wisdom of such a repurposing. At least this DVD does not include the colorized version, as the 2 DVD set a few years ago did. But where is the other bonus content that 2 DVD release contained? A 50G BD would have solved that problem handily.

A Christmas Carol Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It's never really Christmas without some version of A Christmas Carol. Viewers have so many choices with this source material that it would be arrogant for me to deign which is the best. But a lot of fans have maintained this is certainly one of the best, if not the all-time champ, and I certainly wouldn't argue with that. This Blu-ray offers a nice upgrade in image quality, if also troublesome audio, but if you're a fan of this version, you'll most likely be thrilled and won't be too prone to shout, "Bah, humbug!"