Amazon.com
This British production of Dickens's
Christmas Carol has been eclipsed by subsequent versions, but it stands on its own as a darkly atmospheric (if sometimes regrettably brisk) telling of the beloved tale. Even with the rough quality of existing prints, this
Scrooge has a visual intensity that approaches the bold compositions of German expressionism. And in its central role it has a mostly forgotten star: Sir Seymour Hicks, one of the era's celebrated English stage actors. With his gnarled face and flyaway hair, Hicks looks every inch the mean old misanthrope, and his cruelty has a realistic quality missing in some of the more stylized interpreters of the role. Hicks had played Scrooge many times on stage (and before in silent film), and he gets the tenor of every "Humbug!" just right. As a bandy-legged Bob Cratchit, Donald Calthorp is a perfect Victorian illustration come to grinning life.
--Robert Horton
Review
Nothing could be more appropriate to the season than Twickenham's film version of Charles Dickens's ""A Christmas Carol,"" which has come to the Loew's circuit under the nom du cinéma of ""Scrooge."" A faithful, tender and mellow edition of his timeless Yuletide fable, ""Scrooge"" merits inclusion on the holiday shopper's list even if it has to be sandwiched between such items as ""Aunt Katebath salts"" and ""Uncle Georgenecktie.""
Sir Seymour's portrayal of Scrooge is, of course, the high light of the photoplay. As the flinty-hearted old money-lender who believes Christmas is a humbug until the visitations of the four ghosts on Christmas Eve, Sir Seymour is altogether admirable; neither caricature nor daguerreotype, he conveys precisely Dickens's portrait of the crotchety old rascal who reforms in time to guarantee a bright future for Tiny Tim and all the other Cratchits.
Granting it is less than perfect technicallyit suffers from under-lighting and occasional recording lapses""Scrooge"" still deserves one's affectionate regard. It is superbly played, its lines are plucked straight from the source book, and, thanks to understanding adaptation and direction, it carries on at a pace which preserves the Dickensian flavor without denial of modern insistence upon more rapid story development.
The danger of adapting so widely read an author as Dickens to the screen always has been that the mortals chosen to fill the rôles will prove so much less human than the characters he created out of pen, paper and genius. Happily, there is no such disappointment here. To the Dickens screen panel already animated by Edna May Oliver's Betsey Trotwood, W. C. Fields's Micawber and Jessie Ralph's Peggotty now must be added Sir Seymour Hicks's Scrooge and Donald Calthorp's Bob Cratchit.
Mr. Calthorp's Bob Cratchit could not be bettered. The dignity, the patience, the kindliness of the man, whether at home or in the chilly office of Scrooge & Marley, is imprisoned beautifully in his performance. Particularly memorable is the ghost-visioned scene after Tiny Tim's death.
For these individual reasons and for its collective entertainment value ""Scrooge"" should be a welcome addition to the holiday entertainment season. Currently at Loew's Orpheum on Eighty-sixth Street, the picture will be shown from Tuesday through Thursday at Loew's 116th Street Victoria, Yonkers, Avenue B, Apollo, Mount Vernon, New Rochelle and State (White Plains) Theatres, and will continue then down through the Loew circuit. It will be screened also for four days starting next Saturday at the Plaza Theatre. --The New York Times
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192250339_.gif){kind=small}
