When some of my friends told me that “The Muppet Christmas Carol” was the best version of “A Christmas Carol,” I assumed that they were, at least to some degree, joking. Certain bits of the acting are a little cheesy at times, but that’s part of the movie’s charm. The music is fun and well done, and it really helps pad out a relatively short story into a feature-length film. The special effects are also fairly well done, especially for the time this was released. Finney, despite being only 35 when the movie was released, does incredibly in the main role, to the degree that I didn’t even realize he was in old age makeup until he showed up playing younger Scrooge in the Ghost of Christmas Past portion. It’s a classic, no frills take: old rich miser Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve and comes out the other end transformed. The movie is a musical adaptation of the original story starring Albert Finney in the titular role. If you’re looking for a straightforward, standard version of this story that’s still interesting, “Scrooge” (1970) is the way to go. 25 and you feel the sudden urge to watch a Christmas movie before the holiday ends, I’d skip this one. Honestly I don’t know what I was expecting, it’s a three minute silent film from 1901 that is apparently missing a minute or two on either side, they didn’t have much to work with. It also ends abruptly after Scrooge sees his grave, so there is no real indication of the character’s arc. All four ghosts were compressed into one, Jacob Marley, who was played by a man with a sheet draped on his head and shoulders like a hood.
It’d be really easy to say something about a past era of “real” cinema and classical efficiency of storytelling, but it turned out that three minutes might be a little too efficient.
I was really hoping it’d be good, honestly, and not just because I had to watch it. Or, as I later learned, all of what’s survived is available, apparently the original was closer to six minutes. “Scrooge, or, Marley’s Ghost” was the first film adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” ever made it’s only about three minutes long and available in its entirety on YouTube. So if you’re looking for a take on the classic this holiday season, maybe give a few of these a shot. However, as one might expect of a story that’s been retold a million times, some versions stand out over others. Ever since it was published as a novella in 1843, the story has been a classic tale of the evils of hoarding wealth, various ghosts and the importance of Christmas. “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens is undeniably one of the most famous Christmas stories out there.
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