Question of the Week: A Christmas Carol

It’s time for Question of the Week, which is designed to inspire enjoyable discussions of interesting topics.

This week’s question: what is your favorite movie or TV version of A CHRISTMAS CAROL by Charles Dickens? No wrong answers, obviously.

For myself, I think my sentimental favorite is the George C. Scott version from 1984, since that’s the one I used to watch when I was younger. Rewatching it as an adult, it’s impressive how Scott doesn’t even attempt a British accent, and it’s surprising that his version of Scrooge is actually pretty funny with a dry wit.

That said, I think the overall best version of A CHRISTMAS CAROL is the Muppet CHRISTMAS CAROL from 1992. It works because Michael Caine plays it stone-dead serious even when he’s sharing the screen with a bunch of Muppets. Caine famously said that he played against the Muppets like he was playing against the Royal Shakespeare Company, and the contrast with Caine’s serious performance against the silliness of the Muppets creates a sort of alchemy that works really well.

Also, THE MAN WHO INVENTED CHRISTMAS from 2017, a highly fictionalized version of Charles Dickens writing A CHRISTMAS CAROL, is definitely worth watching, even though it takes a few (well, more than a few) creative liberties with the facts.

The inspiration of this question was that I was scrolling through movies on various streaming services and of course this time of year you can watch like a billion different versions of A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

-JM