Scrooge (1935) - Video On Demand

Scrooge - Movie Review

This 1935 version, directed by Henry Edwards (who would go on to direct Boris Karloff in Juggernaut), plays it straight. This film is notable for a particularly enjoyable performance by Sir Seymour Hicks as Scrooge, who also happened to have played the role in a 1913 Leedham Bantock-directed silent version.

Sir Seymour's portrayal of Scrooge is the high light of the film. 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 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. 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.

The heart of A Christmas Carol is the cold-hearted nastiness of Scrooge, and Hicks owns the role with a shock of wild white hair and a jowly grimace. He utters his lines with pure contempt, and it is his portrayal that prevents this telling from looking like a harshly acted, overly dramatic rendition largely hampered by the other performances. The supporting cast, which includes a young Maurice Evans as Scrooge's nephew, recite their lines with broadly delivered theatrics and subsequent hamminess; Mary Glynne's Belle especially is a real laugh riot during her big scene, dressing down Scrooge and his heartless ways.

Edwards' vision of 1843 London holds up exceedingly well as grim, grubby and just plain dirty. Edwards employed a number of (for 1935, that is) cutting-edge sequences featuring fairly elaborate sweeping camera shots that add a depth to the sets, which when coupled with the use of some harsh Expressionistic lighting created a film that is at least visually compelling. A scene during the Christmas Future sequence, where Scrooge's hired help is coldly pawning off his possessions, uses some surreal lighting techniques that give the moment a properly dark and nightmarish tone.

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.

Scrooge - Cast & Crew

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