Time once again for some under-the-radar versions of A Christmas Carol. First up this time is the 1977 BBC TV version starring Michael Hordern as Scrooge. Hordern was better known to some people as the voice of Paddington Bear way back when. There’s a lot of charm to this 58 minute version even though it’s got 70’s sitcom-style lighting and special effects that even the makers of the original Dr Who show could have looked down their noses at. The dialogue is drawn directly from Dickens so it flows nicely and the segment with Belle is kept very brief, like it is in the book.
Usually versions of A Christmas Carol kill the pacing by stretching the Belle portion out to an interminable length. This one keeps ONLY her two actual scenes in the original story: her breakup with Scrooge (sparing us boring, sappy love scenes written by people not named Charles Dickens) and the scene on the Christmas Eve that Jacob Marley died, when a happily married Belle is spending the holiday with her husband and their children.
Bernard Lee plays my favorite ghost, the Ghost of Christmas Present, but since he’s best known as “M” in the early James Bond films I’d rather have seen him as Marley’s Ghost so that when Scrooge makes with his “There’s more of gravy than of grave about you” line he could have retorted “DO be serious, 007.”
Today’s version to avoid is the 2001 Brazilian adaptation that presents the Scrooge stand-in as a drug lord in a ghetto. It’s well-meaning but never recovers from its ill-considered premise and stays too downbeat. It would make a good movie when you’re in an “arthouse” kind of mood at any time of the year EXCEPT Christmas. For my previous entries in this category click the links below:
Balladeer's Blog 
I never appreciated how many variations of this there are.
Thank you for commenting! A lot of people don’t realize how many versions of this story there are.