Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		2.5
Audio		2.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		2.5

Scrooge Blu-ray Movie Review

Bah! Humbug!

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 23, 2011

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.

This is the first full length sound version of A Christmas Carol (there was evidently an earlier short which is thus far lost to the ravages of time). Except in this case “full length” is a perhaps misleading description. This, even in its original 78 minute version, is one of the more truncated film Christmas Carols on record, with an oddly top heavy construction which sees a lot of time spent setting up Scrooge’s dowdy life and living conditions while noticeably skimping on later elements in the story. Even worse than that, most U.S. prints of the film have been cut by around 15 minutes, and that’s sadly the case with this release. Those edits omit several key scenes, albeit some which were not endemic to Dickens’ original source novella. The film as it stands in this version is sort of like a Reader’s Digest version of A Christmas Carol, and one not especially artfully condensed.

This Scrooge has a number of rather odd elements which at the very least set it apart from some of the more rote tellings of Dickens’ iconic tale. Aside from the strange emphasis placed on nonessential opening scenes, the first thing that will probably stick out in most people’s minds is that aside from the Ghost of Christmas Present, the other spectral entities in the film are just that—spectral, as in invisible. Whether this was a budgetary issue or not, it gives the film a patently weird feeling as Hicks runs around rooms talking to himself and reacting to disembodied voices. The film also omits such seemingly central characters as Fezziwig, as well as the frankly often omitted character of Fanny, Ebenezer’s sister.

Hicks does rather well as Scrooge, even if he’s obviously too old to play the younger man. But the real standout in this cast is Donald Calthrop as Bob Cratchit. This Cratchit is not just a welcome mat for Scrooge to wipe his feet on, and seems only too aware of the ridiculousness of Scrooge’s greed, as evidenced by the early office scene where Cratchit mutters under his breath when Scrooge takes umbrage as Cratchit trying to stoke his furnace with a little coal to warm the place up. The family scenes with the Cratchits are also well handled, though Tiny Tim is played for tears perhaps more than is even usual in any given Christmas Carol. Aficionados of future luminaries in early cameos should keep an eye peeled for iconic Hamlet and, much later, Samantha Stephens’ father in Bewitched, Maurice Evans, who plays one of the unfortunates who has borrowed money from Scrooge.

Scrooge Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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.

Scrooge Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

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.

Scrooge Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Blu-ray Supplements:

• Colorized Version of Scrooge. Legend initially made its name doing colorizations of black and white films. Unfortunately the source print is in such bad shape that the colorization only points up its shortcomings. This isn't the worst looking colorization in history, but flesh tones tend toward the yellow end of things and there are still blatant black and white elements, as is usually the case. Note: screencaps 15-19 of this review are from the colorized version.
• Vintage Holiday Cartoons (HD; 30:56). This is an enjoyable assortment of old cartoons, including Santa's Surprise, Christmas Comes But Once a Year, Christmas Circus and Christmas Night. Oddly one of these has an interpolated generic title card. Typically when this happens, nine times out of ten it's because of music licensing issues, but the original soundtrack continues to play in the background until the actual cartoon is joined after the credits.

DVD Supplements:

• A Christmas Wish (SD; 1:29:28). This George Pal production was originally released as The Great Rupert in 1950, and it stars Jimmy Durante and Terry Moore in the slightly weird but admittedly heartwarming tale of a squirrel (a Pal stop motion "animal") who helps some destitute folks around Christmastime. The main menu option is for the colorized version of the film.
• A Christmas Wish in its original black and white version
• Commentary by Terry Moore. Legend Films President Barry Sandrew visited Moore at her Beverly Hills home, and according to his introduction set up two synchronized screens so that they could watch the colorized and black and white versions side by side as Sander recorded Moore's comments. Also in attendance were Moore's son, producer Grant Kramer, as well as a number of other Legend employees. Moore makes for an engaging commentator, though a lot of time is spent with Sander and Moore talking about the colorized version and what were the "real" colors of various items. Kramer and the other Legend employees can occasionally be heard asking Moore various questions.

Scrooge Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

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.