Agree with all the above comments. For me,a good version has plenty of universal moments in it that we can relate to now and still mean something to us.We've all had a Fezziwigs Christmas Party that seems like the ultimate Christmas memory to us years later. We've probably had those people that were in our life and drifted out of it.I guess we've probably all had an Isobel that we've lost to. The advantage of this film is it handles these moments so well, with great dialogue and music.One of the highlights for me is December 25th/Happiness.Scrooge is a young man then with his life in front of him. Later, when the latter song reprises, the haunting air of it really shows how far he has fallen and perfectly illustrates what he has lost. The reprise with echo effect is used again on Tim's song when his father visits him in the churchyard - again to great effect. These are massively moving sections of the film for me and make the highs that bit more enjoyable.You cannot doubt also that Finney is a magnificent Scrooge. This snivelling old man with his dirty fingure nails is a crotchety devil, facetious and bad-tempered, a product of years of unhappiness - not the upright, smart, dignified villian he often appears as.Why do some versions think that a man who won't waste a lump of coal would spend un-necessarily on his own clothes ? Its far easier to see why his bad decisions have led to his own downfall and misery and he makes us laugh with his facial expressions when he discovers that he does, after all, like life.I can excuse Jacob Marley's ridiculous walk, the absurd and totally un-necessary hell scene. I can even excuse the fact that Scrooge is somehow scared of a black cowl on a clothes hanger, wheeled on a trolley.This is my favourite version. It's the best and it gets pride of place every Christmas Eve.
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morningsidemary
12 years ago
OMG, that's what makes this version so spectacular, that it is a musical, full blown, and yet loaded with magnificent actors and acting. What a score from Leslie Bricusse (The Roar of The Greasepaint) and such performances from Dame Edith Evans, Sir Alec Guinness, Kenneth More, and of course Albert Finney, who was utterly appealing. For the first year, it didn't play here, and I certainly missed it, thank tou very much, Time Warner!
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Flywiththeowl
12 years ago
Well said, boll'. & fully agree. Good point about spending copiously on his own clothing.
I was always impressed with the attention to detail in this version & had also noticed the dirty fingernails.
I was reading about George C. Scott's interpretation on Wiki' & according to them, it's another version that's very highly regarded. I found his Scrooge to be far too subtle. Compared to Finney's who played it like the quintessential "mean old man"; prone to angry outbursts at any moment.
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boll-weavil
11 years ago
Absolutely and at the risk of repeating what Ive said a hundred times before,film versions often fall into the trap of portraying a deliberately mean and spiteful old man - enhancing the character to make the turnaround more obvious I guess. George C Scott is the prime example - a Scrooge who is fully aware of his character as a meanie. Dickens doesn't portray that. He goes to great pains to show that Scrooge has made a few wrong decisions and they have led to his own misery and unhappiness and it could happen to anybody. Finney conveys that to me. No one else really does.
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Flywiththeowl
11 years ago
Good point, boll'. I didn't like Scott's version. I thought his delivery was ..."phoned in". Almost as if he were bored. He was expressionless half the time.
There's So much robust *life* in this film, it blows me away that it didn't cause much of a stir when it came out.
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