6.6 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Scrooge, the ultimate Victorian miser, hasn't a good word for Christmas, though his impoverished clerk Cratchit and nephew Fred are full of holiday spirit. But in the night, Scrooge is visited by spirits of another color.
Starring: Seymour Hicks, Donald Calthrop, Robert Cochran (I), Mary Glynne, Garry MarshHoliday | 100% |
Family | 7% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Fantasy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.34:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: Dolby Digital Mono
None
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 2.5 | |
Audio | 2.5 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
For many families, Christmastime is a series of rituals that include everything from decorating a Christmas tree, putting up Christmas lights, buying lots and lots of presents (and hoping to receive at least an equal amount), hanging stockings by the chimney with care and—watching A Christmas Carol in any of its many film or television adaptations. Everyone seems to have their own favorite Christmas Carol, with overall critical sentiment settling on the 1951 Alistair Sim version. (VCI will be re-releasing the Blu-ray version of this film, also known as Scrooge, with new supplemental material in a couple of months and Blu-ray.com will be reviewing that release at that time). My own personal favorite is another film called Scrooge, in this case the sometimes unfairly lambasted 1970 musical version starring Albert Finney as the irascible, but ultimately redeemed, Ebenezer Scrooge (that version is also due rather soon on Blu-ray, and we'll be reviewing it as well). The 1970 version was graced by a then relatively young actor playing older than his age in rather good make-up, but able to evince a very convincing younger Ebenezer in the flashbacks which are, after all, the heart and soul of the story. And despite what many have claimed, the Leslie Bricusse song score (aside from the execrable “The Beautiful Day” for Tiny Tim) is tuneful and very well crafted. But be that as it may, among the plethora of film and television Christmas Carol offerings is this little seen and rarely well remembered 1935 version, yet again known as Scrooge. Unlike many film and television versions which cast an older actor as Scrooge and a different, younger one to portray the character in earlier times, the rather elderly Seymour Hicks is utilized throughout the film to depict one of the most famous characters in all of literature at the various times in his life. While Hicks does reasonably well as the older Scrooge, having a sixty-something man portraying a young man burrowing his way into an ever deeper pit of greed and loneliness is a bit of a stretch.
Sometimes niche labels like Legend Films just can't win. Other labels that release either public domain or "boutique" titles get hammered for over aggressive DNR and other restorative techniques (whether or not you personally feel those efforts do indeed restore anything). On the other hand, labels like Legend who tend not to do a thing with the prints in their catalog get hammered for releasing shoddy looking transfers. But when you're transferring something that is inherently shoddy itself, what really can be done? And that's the case with this Scrooge, a print that aside from being in the edited version of the film, is awash in scratches, warping, bad splices and a wealth of other damage. There's simply only so far this Blu-ray AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.34:1 can do, and frankly, that's not very much. The ghosts may be invisible in this Scrooge, but there's something ghostly going on in large swaths of this film, courtesy of the filtering device which was utilized to create "foggy" London streets. Unfortunately in this high definition presentation that gives the impression of us watching a decent if not brilliant high definition transfer behind an ugly scrim. The middle part of the film looks best, with significantly fewer scratches and other damage, and good black levels and contrast. It's a fleeting moment of adequacy, though, for the rest of the film is hobbled by overwhelming grain which more than approaches digital noise levels (DNR can be a good thing when applied judiciously), fairly apparent edge enhancement and other digital artifacts that may slightly sharpen the image but don't do enough to address the central problem—the shape of the source print.
The funny thing about Scrooge's Dolby Digital mono mix is that the print does not have the skips and pops in the particular place that the opening menu of the Blu-ray have. How that happened is anyone's guess. That's the good news. The bad news is this, like the image, is an unrestored audio track, and it is a low amplitude, hiss-fest which at least presents most of the dialogue reasonably clearly, but which suffers from quite a bit of sonic wear and tear, some of which must be attributable to the edits that were made for this version of the film. The music sounds tinny, as is so frequently the case with films from this era, but the dialogue sounds at least incrementally better. I'm not sure if a lossless track would have actually helped things here, considering the shape of the soundtrack. The uncompressed audio might have in fact sounded worse, if at least louder.
Blu-ray Supplements:
I wish the news were better for this release, if only because Legend has released some very interesting titles which deserve recognition for helping to fill an important niche for serious collectors. Unfortunately the source print here is so badly damaged that not much was accomplished by give it a high definition "upgrade." The film itself is also sadly edited, although truth be told even in its unedited version it's a very strange adaptation of the Dickens novella. Some of the supplemental material here is quite winning, which may help make up for the main feature's failings. Otherwise, though, this is for Christmas Carol completists only.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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