Alastair Sim and Michael Hordern collaborated on both live action and animated versions of A Christmas Carol, both remarkable films
RBC Weekend Film Recommendation is on holiday break this week, but here are two previously recommended movies well worth revisiting at this time of year:
Scrooge: Alastair Sim and Michael Hordern lead a perfect cast in the best live-action adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
A Christmas Carol — The best animated adaptation of the same story is eerie and utterly original. Wonderfully, it features Sim and Hordern among the voice actors.
Author: Keith Humphreys
Keith Humphreys is the Esther Ting Memorial Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford University and an Honorary Professor of Psychiatry at Kings College London. His research, teaching and writing have focused on addictive disorders, self-help organizations (e.g., breast cancer support groups, Alcoholics Anonymous), evaluation research methods, and public policy related to health care, mental illness, veterans, drugs, crime and correctional systems. Professor Humphreys' over 300 scholarly articles, monographs and books have been cited over thirteen thousand times by scientific colleagues. He is a regular contributor to Washington Post and has also written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Monthly, San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian (UK), The Telegraph (UK), Times Higher Education (UK), Crossbow (UK) and other media outlets.
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How this wicked, blasphemous, sacrilegious tale became so popular in a supposedly “Christian” culture is inexplicable. In Luke 16:19-30 we read about the rich man who neglected poor Lazarus at his gate and was later in torment in Hades while Lazarus rested in the bosom of Abraham. The rich man asked that Abraham send Lazarus to warn his brothers of what awaited them if they behaved as he did, but Abraham said that if his brothers did not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither would they listen to someone rising from the dead; there is no point in sending such a warning. That is the clear and unmistakable lesson of this passage. He who hath ears, let him hear.
But Dickens was having none of this; no, he decided that he could improve on the gospel and wrote this tale of a rich man hearkening to such a warning and being redeemed thereby. Let us all flee from Dickens’ story as from a deadly plague, or we will surely be tormented ourselves in Hades for our disbelief in the authentic Word of God.
Besides which, Patrick Stewart deserves honorable mention for his 1999 performance as Scrooge.
Agreed! Patrick Stewart was outstanding, and I think he hugged the original story a bit more closely than most other adaptations.
But of course, I admit my favorite animated version is Mr. Magoo’s version. I love the songs most of all….
Nitpick: Alastair, not Alistair.
Good catch — thanks!
Allow me to recommend “Blackadder’s A Christmas Carol”.
There are a couple of recordings - cassettes - of the story in full that are great listening, notably in a sufficiently long car ride during the holidays. Unfortunately both of them decided to hide deep in the Christmas supplies this year and have not been found, so I can’t give you the names of the readers (who read all parts very persuasively) - both of them are far more convincing than Mr Sim, in my view - and I have seen a few minutes of Mr Sim’s version this year (hard to avoid if one turns on the TV at all). If they show up as we put away the decorations etc that we did manage to find, I’ll mention them here. Highly recommended. (Brits, of course.)
The Muppet Christmas Carol is lovely. Also wonderful is a TV version in which David Warner, who generally plays the devil or Jack the Ripper et al played a sad-eyed Bob Cratchit.
Bill Murray’s Scrooged is the best — Kane should have won an Oscar as the Ghost of Christmas Present.