Anyone who has been reading my posts on this site for more than a year knows that I am a Christmas Carol fanatic.\u00a0 So as a fair warning I\u2019ll just say that this post is only for true Christmas Carol devotees.\u00a0 Every word of it is subjective and dedicated to minutiae.\u00a0 I have four versions of the film that I like and each has an aspect in which it excels the other three.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Here goes.<\/p>\n
Material that wasn\u2019t in the book<\/strong><\/p>\n A Christmas Carol was a novella.\u00a0 It is brief and in places lacks details about the characters and events.<\/p>\n For instance, the book never says why Scrooge\u2019s father treated him so poorly.\u00a0 In the 1951 version it is stated that his father held it against him that his mother died in his childbirth.\u00a0 And in the same version a similar grudge exists as the reason why Scrooge dislikes his nephew Fred.\u00a0 It is shown that his sister Fan died giving birth to Fred.\u00a0 In the 1984 version the same reason for his father\u2019s dislike for Scrooge is presented.\u00a0 But the death of Fan during Fred\u2019s birth is not added.\u00a0 What is interesting about these additions is that based on the original story they would be impossible.\u00a0 In the book Fan is quite a bit younger than her brother Ebenezer.\u00a0 Therefore, their mother couldn\u2019t have died at the birth of her older child.\u00a0 I suppose Fan could have been Ebenezer\u2019s half-sister but I don\u2019t imagine that a twice married man would still be holding his first wife\u2019s death as a grudge against his son.\u00a0 So, this addition is spurious.\u00a0 But it is extremely dramatic and provides a timely reason for both father\u2019s and son\u2019s misanthropic behavior that could be somewhat excused and so leave room for deserved forgiveness.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 We see that the younger Scrooge never heard the dying plea and the older Scrooge gets to belatedly beg his beloved deceased sister\u2019s forgiveness for his heartless treatment of her only child.<\/p>\n And notice that the 1984 version borrows both the discrepancy of Fan\u2019s age and the spurious grudge of Scrooge\u2019s father but neglects the equally spurious grudge of Scrooge for his nephew.\u00a0 I guess they thought those additions gave resonance to the story.<\/p>\n In both the 1951 and 1984 versions Scrooge\u2019s fianc\u00e9e is introduced during the Fezziwig party scene and give a name (Alice in the earlier version, Belle in the later).\u00a0 Neither this early link to Scrooge\u2019s life or the name show up in the book.\u00a0 In addition, in the 1951 version it skips the scene introducing this woman\u2019s 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.\u00a0 Now whereas tying Scrooge\u2019s 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.\u00a0 It seems unwarranted.\u00a0 I think the scene where she is surrounded by her family is dramatic enough in that it illustrates what happiness Scrooge has lost.<\/p>\n In the book the Ghost of Christmas Present visits the house of Scrooge\u2019s nephew Fred.\u00a0 The dinner guests are presented enjoying games such as blindman buff and forfeits which I take to be word games such as twenty questions.\u00a0 One of the rounds determined that it was a disagreeable animal that growled and lived in London.\u00a0 And, of course, it turns out to be Uncle Scrooge. \u00a0In 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.\u00a0 When Fred asks his wife to complete \u201cas tight as,\u201d she replies \u201cyour Uncle Scrooge\u2019s purse strings.\u201d\u00a0 Scrooge hears this while in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Present.\u00a0 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 \u201cas tight as a drum.\u201d\u00a0 Nicely played.<\/p>\n From the book we know that Jacob Marley died seven years earlier on Christmas Eve.\u00a0 And we are informed that Scrooge inherited his house.\u00a0 What the 1951 version does is tie these facts together in a scene.\u00a0 We have Jacob Marley\u2019s charwoman come to the office and interact with Bob Cratchit and Scrooge.\u00a0 Then we have Scrooge being warned by a dying Marley that their misanthropy would endanger their immortal souls.\u00a0 And this then links both the charwoman\u2019s 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.\u00a0 In this scene the charwoman (identified incorrectly as Mrs. Dilber) is bringing in Scrooge\u2019s breakfast and witnesses his reformation into a caring human being.\u00a0 His manic happiness frightens her and when he gives her a gold sovereign coin as a present, she assumes it\u2019s a bribe to keep her quiet about his strange behavior.\u00a0 When he tells her it\u2019s 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.\u00a0 I find this addition to the story especially apt.\u00a0 In the story the charwoman selling Scrooge\u2019s bed curtains comes off very negatively.\u00a0 But humanizing her by including her positively in the scene about Marley\u2019s 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.\u00a0 It reinforces that Scrooge\u2019s repentance touches every aspect of the world we have been shown in a positive way.<\/p>\n Overall I\u2019d say that the film additions to the plot have been acceptable and true to the spirit of the story.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n