George C. Scott's take on Charles Dickens' classic Christmas literary character is a personification that I've revisited religiously every Christmas eve for many years now. Time has brought a sort of familiarity to this TV version that makes me more fond of it than other variations. I won't say that this is definitively the best version of A Christmas Carol, but it's certainly still one of my personal favorites.

Although this adaptation is oftimes cheap in its appearance (thanks to its age and lower budget television quality), Scott himself carries this film with his magnificent talent. His gruff voice and towering appearance gives a more hardened personality to this Ebeneezer Scrooge than other performances have. He's less cartoonish in his…

Arguably the darkest of the Christmas Carol adaptations for film, and one of my personal favorites, I watched this pretty much every year around the holidays as an adolescent, sometimes in the middle of the year as my mother is one of those people who watches Christmas movies year-round. It planted the kernel of my now deep affection for George C. Scott, whose voice is now the quintessential voice of Scrooge in my mind when I read Dickens' original text. What a great, legendary growl of a voice. And his laugh is the best.

Aptly for a story titled A Christmas Carol, this one seems to understand how important  legitimate spookiness is to the story and Christmas hymns and carols…

"God bless us, everyone!" 

This is not a proper review, it is more of an update

First of all, quick thoughts on the movie.
Controversially, my favourite adaptation of A Christmas Carol is the Jim Carrey one! I find it grand and endearing (and even a little freaky). This one is a bit dated, but it still retains the sweet moments and the creepy beats.

I hope everyone is having a merry Christmas and I hope everyone has a happy new year (here's for a good year eh?). It's been, shockingly, a year since I made a Letterboxd account. That is crazy!!! But it's been my most prominent hobby and the most faithful I've been to one since my Lego…

For the last few Christmases, I have endeavored to sit down and watch multiple versions of A Christmas Carol. Typically, I've started late on Christmas Eve and carried on into morning, mirroring Ebeneezer Scrooge's experience. This year, I indulged the woman I've been dating and went with her to a midnight mass service. It turns out she was only passingly familiar with Dickens' "Carol", so Christmas evening, as we were laying low, she inquired further and expressed curiosity in seeing a version of it. I selected this one, and the 1999 TV movie starring Patrick Stewart, and gave her her pick. She, in turn, deferred to the cat, who nodded in the direction of George C. Scott.

I have some…

I seem to recall seeing this way back when it was originally broadcast. Seeing over the years that it remains a highly regarded version I thought it worth a revisit. One notable thing is that there are so many Six-Degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon connections with horror, sci-fi and other versions of this story, that you practically need a wall of photos and red string.

Clive Donner, who edited my preferred 1951 version with Alistair Sim, directs, and layers on the Gothic atmosphere with a trowel. The staging is highly effective; Tiny Tim actually looks like he might croak at any moment, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come might be the best version ever put on film.

George C. Scott's Scrooge is…