Anyone who has been reading my posts on this site for more than a year knows that I am a Christmas Carol fanatic. So as a fair warning I’ll just say that this post is only for true Christmas Carol devotees. Every word of it is subjective and dedicated to minutiae. I have four versions of the film that I like and each has an aspect in which it excels the other three. Every year I re-evaluate the films and debate with myself on trivial points that would have exactly zero importance to the overwhelming majority of the human inhabitants of planet earth. Here goes.
Material that wasn’t in the book
A Christmas Carol was a novella. It is brief and in places lacks details about the characters and events.
For instance, the book never says why Scrooge’s father treated him so poorly. In the 1951 version it is stated that his father held it against him that his mother died in his childbirth. And in the same version a similar grudge exists as the reason why Scrooge dislikes his nephew Fred. It is shown that his sister Fan died giving birth to Fred. In the 1984 version the same reason for his father’s dislike for Scrooge is presented. But the death of Fan during Fred’s birth is not added. What is interesting about these additions is that based on the original story they would be impossible. In the book Fan is quite a bit younger than her brother Ebenezer. Therefore, their mother couldn’t have died at the birth of her older child. I suppose Fan could have been Ebenezer’s half-sister but I don’t imagine that a twice married man would still be holding his first wife’s death as a grudge against his son. So, this addition is spurious. But it is extremely dramatic and provides a timely reason for both father’s and son’s misanthropic behavior that could be somewhat excused and so leave room for deserved forgiveness. And it has a highly effective scene where the older Scrooge hears his dying sister ask for his promise to take care of her infant son Fred. We see that the younger Scrooge never heard the dying plea and the older Scrooge gets to belatedly beg his beloved deceased sister’s forgiveness for his heartless treatment of her only child.
And notice that the 1984 version borrows both the discrepancy of Fan’s age and the spurious grudge of Scrooge’s father but neglects the equally spurious grudge of Scrooge for his nephew. I guess they thought those additions gave resonance to the story.
In both the 1951 and 1984 versions Scrooge’s fiancée is introduced during the Fezziwig party scene and give a name (Alice in the earlier version, Belle in the later). Neither this early link to Scrooge’s life or the name show up in the book. In addition, in the 1951 version it skips the scene introducing this woman’s later life with husband and large family but instead substitutes a scene during the Ghost of Christmas Present section where Belle is volunteering at a shelter for the poor. Now whereas tying Scrooge’s love to the Fezziwig era of his life is fine and in fact better than the way the book presents it, I do not particularly favor the poor shelter addition. It seems unwarranted. I think the scene where she is surrounded by her family is dramatic enough in that it illustrates what happiness Scrooge has lost.
In the book the Ghost of Christmas Present visits the house of Scrooge’s nephew Fred. The dinner guests are presented enjoying games such as blindman buff and forfeits which I take to be word games such as twenty questions. One of the rounds determined that it was a disagreeable animal that growled and lived in London. And, of course, it turns out to be Uncle Scrooge. In the 1984 version the story is adapted so the dinner guests are playing a game called similes where they need to guess the end of a simile. When Fred asks his wife to complete “as tight as,” she replies “your Uncle Scrooge’s purse strings.” Scrooge hears this while in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Present. After his repentance and on the actual Christmas Day he meets his niece and discussing the game of similes he advises her that the simile, in case it came up, was “as tight as a drum.” Nicely played.
From the book we know that Jacob Marley died seven years earlier on Christmas Eve. And we are informed that Scrooge inherited his house. What the 1951 version does is tie these facts together in a scene. We have Jacob Marley’s charwoman come to the office and interact with Bob Cratchit and Scrooge. Then we have Scrooge being warned by a dying Marley that their misanthropy would endanger their immortal souls. And this then links both the charwoman’s stealing of his bed curtains and bed clothing and her later spurious appearance after the last of the spirits depart and Scrooge wakes up on actual Christmas morning. In this scene the charwoman (identified incorrectly as Mrs. Dilber) is bringing in Scrooge’s breakfast and witnesses his reformation into a caring human being. His manic happiness frightens her and when he gives her a gold sovereign coin as a present, she assumes it’s a bribe to keep her quiet about his strange behavior. When he tells her it’s a Christmas present and he is quintupling her salary she is overcome with happiness and rushes off with her own characteristic version of a Merry Christmas greeting. I find this addition to the story especially apt. In the story the charwoman selling Scrooge’s bed curtains comes off very negatively. But humanizing her by including her positively in the scene about Marley’s death and allowing a rapprochement with a penitent Scrooge on Christmas morning improves the story and ties these aspects of the story together in a way that gives the story more depth. It reinforces that Scrooge’s repentance touches every aspect of the world we have been shown in a positive way.
Overall I’d say that the film additions to the plot have been acceptable and true to the spirit of the story.
The Inside Baseball of Film Versions of “A Christmas Carol” – Part 2