A Christmas Carol - Alec Guinness (1950) - Part 1

A Christmas Carol (1950)
Producer: Cleland Finn
Scrooge: Alec Guinness

We stay in the department of famous British actors taking a swing at playing Ebenezer Scrooge with Alec Guinness in a BBC radio broadcast of "A Christmas Carol" from 1950.

Alec Guinness seems to me to be the one actor who should have played Scrooge in a movie but didn't get the chance.

He established his reputation as a screen actor with his first two movies, which were David Lean's adaptations of "Great Expectations" and "Oliver Twist," so that's a good Dickens pedigree. I figure David Lean must have thought about keeping the Dickens thing going with a big screen adaptation of "A Christmas Carol" and he subsequently worked with Alec Guinness on four more movies, so he would have been considered for the lead role of Scrooge. And based on his penchant for makeup and different voices, he could easily have slipped into the role.

But the 1951 movie "Scrooge" starring Alastair Sim would've ended such plans if they had ever existed. That 1951 movie is great, so no squawks here!

Of course, 20 years later, Alec Guinness did famously play Marley's Ghost opposite Albert Finney's Scrooge.

Whatever the case, this half-hour radio drama gives us the chance to hear Alec Guinness play Scrooge and he does have his own take.

You can listen to it with this video:

Or here with better quality sound:

Alec Guinness - A Christmas Carol