Scrooge (1951) - Who's Who

Scrooge (1951)
Director: Brian Desmond Hurst
Scrooge: Alastair Sim

OK, so, let's start big!

This is the famous British adaptation released in the U.S. as "A Christmas Carol" and starring Alastair Sim as Scrooge.

For as long as I can remember, it's always been conventional wisdom that this is the best version ever, with Alastair Sim the Sean Connery of Scrooges!

Now that 68 years have passed and so many other versions have come along, are these things still true? In a word: yes!

This production on the whole and Alastair Sim in particular have that something special that everyone else tries for, but can't quite reach. It set the bar really high! In fact, I think a lot of subsequent adaptations use this move as a template. Sometimes it seems like it's the source material rather than the book itself!

You can't have a great version without a great Scrooge and this has one. Alastair Sim's Scrooge starts off pretty mean and miserable and ends up pretty nice happy and we get to see the progression throughout the movie. With a lot of other Scrooges, it's like a switch was flipped from mean to nice! He has a good Scrooge "look" as well, without a lot of makeup to be distracting.

To modern American audiences, it's as if Alastair Sim showed up to play Scrooge one day, then fell off the face of the earth once shooting was completed, but he actually had a long career in British cinema, continuing for a couple more decades after this.

It's not a one man show, however, as the rest of the cast is solid as well. To me, Mervyn Johns as Bob Cratchit is right up there too. He strikes the right notes as the humble, subservient employee as well as the jolly, caring family man. For more old school ghostliness with Mervyn Johns, "Dead of Night" (1945) is not to be missed.

Mrs. Cratchit is played here by a relatively young and subdued Hermione Baddeley. I remember her from her way brassier appearances in the 1970s, such as "Mrs. Naugatuck," the replacement maid on "Maude," so it's interesting to see her 20-odd years before.

I've gone back and forth over the years with my opinion of the Mrs. Dilber character, as played by Kathleen Harrison. The performance is definitely over the top, but if taken on the spirit of comedy relief, she's OK and I've come to peace with the character. I imagine the whole thing was more suitable for British audiences at the time. I understand that Kathleen Harrison was popular at the time in British movies that did not make their way across the pond. This explains her extremely prominent billing in the original advertising.

Of course, in the original book, Mrs. Dilber is the laundress, but in this movie she's the charwoman. But since she's fairly prominent here, it seems that every future version featuring the charwoman inevitably refers to her as Mrs. Dilber. Admittedly it's hard to follow in the original text, but a small thing like this only further shows the influence of this film!

The other oddly prominently billed actor, Jack Warner, was frequently paired with Kathleen Harrison in those popular British films. He gets some good scenes here as "Mr. Jorkin," a completely made-up character who "helps" Scrooge on the road to miserliness, although in a very jovial manner.  He's quite a charming scoundrel!

Not a made-up character, but one who gets an unusual amount of screen time is young Scrooge, played by George Cole. He does a good job, but I can't say that he seems like a young version of Alastair Sim to me, but young Scrooge is always tough to cast. George Cole is another actor who's in zillion British films and TV shows, but never well-known to American audiences. He was a protege of  Alastair Sim and they appeared together in a number of other movies, including a couple of entries in the "St. Trinian's" series. I wonder if they ever chatted about playing Scrooge!

Another not-exactly made-up character is Alice, Scrooge's former fiancée, who morphed from Belle from the book. She's played by Rona Anderson, who makes a pretty good impression in her couple of scenes.

We get a good Jacob Marley from Michael Hordern, who actually gets a brief opportunity to play a "live" Marley!

Also suitable is Brian Worth as Fred, who is fine, if not in the top ranks of Freds.

That leaves us with Tiny Tim. I always have a tough time with Tiny Tim, as it's hard to picture most of them as being so deathly ill that the next Ghost of Christmas Present will only find an unused crutch at an empty chair. Glyn Dearman here does a good enough job in the role, though.

In one of those cool things about older movies, sometimes you get a glimpse of a future star in a small, early role. Here we get Patrick Macnee (later of TV's cult favorite "The Avengers") as young Jacob Marley. Fun!

OK, so we have a solid cast with top cat Scrooge. Next we'll talk about the movie itself, with a close look at how it compares with the original novella...