Review of A Christmas Carol

An excellent if shorter than it should have been version of Dickens' beloved story of the meanest miser in London.Reginald Owen is superb as Scrooge,and the rest of the cast is excellent,Especially Barry Mackail as Fred who is exactly as Dickens portrayed the character overflowing with good spirits.Lionel Barrymore who portrayed Scrooge annually on radio was to have played the lead but suffered crippling injury.Owen is excellent in the role but the movie was planned with Barrymore in mind and probably the loss of his box office appeal was the reason that the movie was cut so much to save cost.They hedged their bets with a less costly production,There are some strange changes,in the scene where the ghost of Christmas past takes Scrooge to the window, and Scrooge fears falling instead of Dickens wonderful and famous line"Bear but a touch of my hand here and you shall be UPHELD IN MORE THAN THIS" she merely says" and you shall be safe" One thing stated as a GOOF is that the title says "London over a century ago" when in 1938 the story was less than a century old, but the story makes it clear that even the nost recent parts of the story were in the past,and that Scrooge was gone.Some have questioned Scrooges quick reformation in the movie,but in the story when Scrooge sees himself as a boy in the school he regrets having chased a boy caroler awayfrom his window,and when he talks about Fezziwig's kindness and looks regretful, he tells the spirit that he wished to have a word with his clerk.So in the book he repents very early.There are some odd things caused by the shortening When Scrooge wakes up on Christmas morning he grabs the bed curtains in relief,though the scene where the curtains were sold is not in the movie. But still a great version of this story dear to anyone who grew up in the 50's