A Christmas Carol (MGM, 1938)
MGM’s version, with Reginald Owen as Scrooge, in barely over an hour.
Keep it short, keep it kind, and make sure the audience leaves happy.
You like old Hollywood and you want the gentlest version of the story, over in about an hour.
What it keeps and what it changes
Keeps: the four visits and the Christmas morning.
Changes: the edges. Scrooge fires Bob Cratchit after a snowball fight, Fred gets a romance, and the darker figures, Want and Ignorance among them, are left out.
MGM made it short and kind: Scrooge fires Bob Cratchit after a snowball hits him, Fred gets a romance, and Want and Ignorance, the undertaker and the charwomen are left out. Lionel Barrymore was meant to play Scrooge and withdrew through illness.
Whose story is it?
Scrooge’s and the Cratchits’, played by Gene and Kathleen Lockhart, a married couple.
How much time does it ask?
A 69-minute feature, directed by Edwin L. Marin.
Reginald Owen, Gene Lockhart, Kathleen Lockhart, Terry Kilburn, Leo G. Carroll. Warner Bros.
Where to find it
Other ways to get it: DVD — Amazon · Find where it’s streaming — JustWatch
More Christmas Carols: Scrooge (1951), with Alastair Sim · A Christmas Carol (1984), with George C. Scott · A Christmas Carol (1999), with Patrick Stewart