GREATER THAN DAVID COPPERFIELD!
The cheap and miserable old Scrooge (Reginald Owen) is visited on Christmas Eve by the ghost of his former business partner who tells him that three more spirits are coming. Hollywood’s first prominent screen adaptation of the Dickens story has fallen in the shadow of the British Scrooge (1951) and is generally inferior in spite of OK production values. Because of MGM insisting on a short film for family audiences, several of the story’s darker, poignant moments have sadly been ignored. Owen is pretty good as Scrooge, and fans of old Hollywood might get a kick out of watching the Lockhart family play the Cratchits.
1938-U.S. 69 min. B/W. Directed by Edwin L. Marin. Novel: Charles Dickens. Cast: Reginald Owen (Ebeneezer Scrooge), Gene Lockhart (Bob Cratchit), Kathleen Lockhart (Mrs. Cratchit), Terry Kilburn, Barry MacKay, Lynne Carver… Leo G. Carroll, Ann Rutherford.
Trivia: Lionel Barrymore was first considered for the part of Scrooge.
Not my favorite “Carol”, but certainly the brightest & happiest.