The Christmas Season is again over as a New Year approaches. Yet again, the imaginary and paranoid “War On Christmas” has failed to materialize, just like the last prediction of the Rapture. The Religiously Impaired™ will never learn, will they? Of course, that is not important now. What is important is a reflection on the latest and greatest adaptations and versions of my favorite Christmas classic, A Christmas Carol.
Who am I kidding? We are well into a new year, and what a debacle 2020 has been. I won’t dwell on it, we all know what has been happening. I thought that I would be watching tons of movies and cranking out reviews during the convalescence, but I’ve been pretty much paralyzed by horror and disgust. Maybe by Christmas things will be better. Perhaps they might be even worse, so I’m getting this Ruthless Christmas post in early…just in case.
Below this article I have included links to all NINETEEN reviews of various versions. I tried to make it to 20, but it is what it is. I will also include a ranking of the TOP TEN versions according to the infallible Goatesians Rating Scale for excellence. I must say that the race between #1 and #2 was only a goat’s whisker. Special mention needs to be given to the Blackadder’s Christmas Carol for a wildly original “Anti-Scrooge”, and the great movie The Man Who Invented Christmas, which was not an adaptation, but an explanation of how A Christmas Carol was conceived and written.
Here is my Top 10 of my favorite versions of A Christmas Carol
10. Scrooge (1935) (Seymour Hicks Scrooge) *
9. The Man Who Invented Christmas (The creation of the Dickens classic) *
8. A Christmas Carol (1971-Animated/Short) (Best animated version) *
7. A CHRISTMAS CAROL (The 1970 Albert Finney musical) *
6. Blackadder’s Christmas Carol (1988) (Hilarious Rowan Atkisson version) *
5. A CHRISTMAS CAROL (The 1999 TV version Patrick Stewart) *
4. A Christmas Carol (2009) (Jim Carrey Disney animated version) *
3. A CHRISTMAS CAROL (The 1984 George C. Scott version) *
2. A Christmas Carol: (2019) FX Version (3 hour FX TV version) *
NUMBER ONE A Christmas Carol (1951) (Alastair Sim Scrooge) *
Below are links to my reviews of the least of the rest, versions that didn’t quite make the grade
A Christmas Carol (1977) (Michael Horden TV Scrooge)
A Christmas Carol-The Musical (2004) (Kelsey Grammer TV Musical)
The Muppets Christmas Carol (1992) (The Muppets)
It’s Christmas, Carol! (2012) (TV version with Carrie Fisher)
Scrooged (Bill Murray modern version)
Scrooge In The Hood (They put the Dick in Dickens)
An American Christmas Carol (1979) (Henry Winkler)
A Christmas Carol (1954) TV (1 hour TV Shower of Stars)
A Christmas Carol (1938) (Reginald Owen Scrooge)
O.K., I’ll see all of you later in November for my regular Christmas onslaught of movie reviews. That is…If the creek don’t rise further.