Bah Humbug!

Watch Dicken's Tale of the Greatest "Reset" Ever with Your Family

Still the Very Best Version of “A Christmas Carol” ever in my studied opinion! What's yours?

Before I get mobbed, let me say that I love the 1951 version, as well as the Disney, Muppet, Bill Murray, Patrick Stewart, and Jason Alexander versions, but the 1984 production really sets the standard. George C. Scott gives an acting masterclass as Scrooge--the depth of nuance in his expressions and line readings is unparalleled. He really imbues the character with pathos, and you can see the transformation take place over the course of the spirit visits. The supporting cast is fantastic as well, especially David Warner as Bob Cratchit. It's really hard to believe this was a made-for-TV movie--Scott treats it like a Shakespeare production of the highest order. A true classic. This is also why you may have never seen it before. IBM, the sponsor, kept it off market for 25 years after the 1984 release, with just a few re-runs. This was a mistake even Big Blue missed.

A Christmas Carol with George C Scott, 1984: Its never too early for the real spirit of the Christmas Holidays, and it’s free. Enjoy!

“Are there no prisons?” said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. “Are there no workhouses”

Interpretations of “A Christmas Carol” have often tried to turn it into an assault on the wealthy, critiquing capitalism’s effect on society. It is not. There is nothing wrong with being very wealthy in Dickens’ book. The two good men raising money for the poor are capitalists and entrepreneurs. They are “portly” in a time when food was scarce and people starved on the streets.

The evil in society comes from indifference towards fellow people and a reliance on a governmental system that does more harm than good.

As we all know, Scrooge awakes from his last ghostly visit a new man. He buys Bob Cratchit a turkey and pays the two portly men hefty sums to help the poor. Then he goes to celebrate Christmas at a sumptuous party thrown by his wealthy nephew Fred.

Again, “A Christmas Carol” is not an attack on wealth. Scrooge remains wealthy in the end, and the ideal Christmas is a celebration filled with excesses of food, drink and gifts. But it condemns the violence of looking away, ignoring the evils foisted on people who cannot afford to survive in society, and the political structure that keeps mortifying poverty in place.

It’s easy to believe we don’t live in a society with the sheer injustice of Victorian England. But there are many similarities.

THIS IS THE MOVIES THEME SONG. Have you ever heard a more “authentic” Christmas Carol? (See piano score below!)

For a deep dive on the Victorian workhorses and debtors prisons, click here https://www.opportunityinstitute.org/blog/post/a-christmas-carol-sending-the-poor-to-prison/

Here's a tidbit few know which will enhance your appreciation for the movie posted above:

When he was 12 years old in 1824, Charles Dickens worked 10-hour days in a rat-infested shoe-polish factory for six shillings a week. That’s the equivalent of £30.68 or $41.06 in 2017 currency.

It was all the money he had to get by. His father, mother, and five siblings aged 2-11 were in prison because the family was in debt. This is what Western society did with the poor in the mid-1800s. If you fell behind on your bills or couldn’t pay legal fines, you and your family went to flea-ridden government workhouses where you would labor to earn your keep.

Your work did not, however, pay off your debts – you could spend the rest of your life there. If you died in a debtor’s prison, your body was given to anatomists to dissect in the name of science.

Needless to say, Charles Dickens grew to hate the system and rail against it in his works. In his seminal novella “A Christmas Carol,” Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by two portly men raising money for the poor.

What shall I put you down for?”

“Nothing!” Scrooge replied.

“You wish to be anonymous?”

“I wish to be left alone,” said Scrooge. “Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.”

“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”

“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

(I suspect that last line is Bill Gates fav. Look for him smirking and rubbing his Scroogy hands in glee at the back of your local performance of “A Christmas Carol”)

BONUS: