Scrooge 1970 ***

Christmas films are a mixed bag, reliant on tapping into pre-existing sentiment and beliefs. The best of them, like It’s A Wonderful Life or Love Actually, cast a wide net and hope to engage us with a developed sense of community, raising awareness of the world around us during a time of celebration. Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is arguably the most loved and remade Christmas Story that is not overtly religious; instead, there’s a supernatural theme cannily used to uncover a simple but effective sense of well-being.

Coming hot on the heels of Oliver!, Scrooge was expected to cement a new genre of all-singing, all dancing literary adaptations; it did not. Part of that failure was ascribed to Albert Finney’s miscasting as Ebenezer Scrooge, but in truth, he’s offers exactly the kind of weighty, self-important character that a self-absorbed miser might require, and makes his conversion all the sweeter. Less effective is Alex Guinness as proto Force Ghost Jacob Marley, looking something of a sight in chains; even Kenneth More’s Ghost of Christmas Present is somewhat grotesque, and songs like I Like Life are less than classics.

But where Ronald Neame’s film hits the mark is with the song Thank You Very Much, performed twice in the film, once by Tom Jenkins (Anton Rodgers) and then again by Finney, capering down the sets of London streets in his nightgown. Both versions see the inhabitants of London joining in the throng, with street-urchins dancing away their poverty in a way that Monty Python would later parody. Rogers, looking bizarrely like former PM David Cameron, delivers the song with perfect timing, and the artificial sets give it the feel of The Muppets’ Christmas Carol. It’s a show-stopper par excellence.

Scrooge is also a story that works well for various religions in that it depicts a man literally throwing off the restraints of his material possessions in favour of attaining a more developed sense of enlightenment. Scrooge uses his wealth to gratify, not himself, but those who share his universe, and it’s a lesson that he is glad to learn. He recants his errors of judgement, and that ability to see beyond what’s good for ones-self is what makes Scrooge a classic Christmas movie. If you’re reading this review, then all I can say is, Thank You Very Much!