[New Release] Moneylender Pro Version Full With Crackl: A Comprehensive Review and Comparison

I have to say I loved them both, in particular The Muppets version, which, more or less, stuck closer to Dickens original story than practically any other film version - apart from giving Charles Dickens a big blue nose and introducing us to the Marley twins in order to make use of both Statler and Waldorf! I thought Michael Caine gave one of the best performances of Scrooge I've ever seen, imbuing him with a pathos that suggests he (Scrooge not Michael) is very much a product of a miserable past.

In fairness, since this was the first version with sound, there was nothing to look back to as a benchmark and you get the impression that the screen writer, H. Fowler Mear, and the director, Henry Edwards, began with the best of intentions of following Dickens storyline as faithfully as possible but that they put so much effort and time into setting up the atmosphere, and contrasting the gulf between the rich and the poor of Victorian London, that, by the time Scrooge got home for the start of his Christmas Eve redemption, there was no money left in the kitty to do anything else.

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In this version, there are no phantoms wandering hither and thither outside Scrooge's window; his doomed romance with his fiancée, Belle, is doomed to have never happened; the "wretched, frightful, hideous children," want and ignorance, are nowhere to be seen - let alone cowering within the folds of the robes of the Ghost of Christmas Present; and the thieves who ransack Scrooge's room after his demise in the Christmas Yet To Come Sequence are also conspicuous by their absence.

That said, this version most certainly has redeeming features. It does, for example, possess the warmth of the original Dickens story and, with its overall feel good factor, it is easy to see why this remained the most famous version on American television until Alastair Sim's adaptation began to receive widespread exposure in the 1970's.

Then, just when you think it's safe to come out from behind the sofa, Christopher Cook, as Tiny Tim, lets rip with a mournful ditty, watched by his adoring mum as she turns the goose on the spit and looks awfully like Mrs. Cunningham from Happy Days. "Bless us everyone" her precious, and precocious, Timmy warbles, as the camera cuts to a close up of Scrooge's face, and you sense that he is praying for the goose fat to set fire to the hearth and burn the house down so that he can go home and have a decent night's sleep.

As the song dies away, and Mrs Dilber looks awkwardly around her, wondering if she was meant to exit stage left or stage right, the camera cuts to Scrooge, who is reclining in bed and appears to be sleeping peacefully, despite the fact that a loud baritone voice is singing about "a pair of rattling chains" that came "clanking through the gloom," before continuing with, "And while he lay there shivering, in the icy wind of fear, the ghost of Scrooge's partner, Jacob Marley, did appear."

This version breaks with other adaptations in that, at one stage, a group of writhing, shrouded figures chain Scrooge to his gravestone, whilst tormenting him mercilessly; and the camera pans in so close on his face that I fast forwarded to the end credits to see if Basil Rathbone's dentist got a well deserved mention.

We first encounter Quincy (hands up all those who didn't know his first name was Quincy) Magoo, "Broadway's Beau Brummel," driving the wrong way down a one way street en route to the theatre where he is, according to the critical notices that pepper the opening sequence, wowing audiences with his critically lauded version of A Christmas Carol.

However, the scenes that are included remain reasonably faithful to the book and Magoo actually delivers many of Dickens original lines verbatim without, as has happened in several recent versions, any attempt to alter or simplify them in order to make them understandable to modern ears.

However, given that this version, airing as it did regularly in the 1960's, 70's and 80's, was, for many adults, their introduction to Dickens classic, it would be churlish to find too much fault with it and, in honesty, it is still enjoyable and the songs, written by Jules Styne (Music) and Bob Merill (Lyrics), who shortly after this special collaborated on the musical Funny Girl and are, actually, quite memorable and, in a strange sort of way, rather haunting.

It's Christmas Eve, and a man, who bears a striking resemblance to Benson, the butler from Soap, proceeds to walk across the marble floor of a large Baronial pile, as a vaguely familiar tune, crackling somewhere in the dark depths of the creepy old mansion, keeps time with his every step.

The editing is a little dodgy in this 1969, animated, re-telling of the story, but it does have a gloomy atmosphere that is not out of keeping with the book, and the Scrooge we are introduced to at the beginning is a delightfully unpleasant incarnation.

There is a bizarre moment early on when Fred, Scrooge's nephew, turns up at the counting house and, for some reason, feels it necessary to burst into song, accompanied by a full orchestra playing from somewhere deep within the depths of Scrooge's counting house!

We'd had Oliver and Pickwick and so the time seemed right to give Dickens Christmas classic the full razzle-dazzle musical treatment - they had a head start with this one since Dickens had, after all, written it in staves as opposed to chapters.

Alec Guinness drops in as an, initially, quite camp Jacob Marley. In fact, he enters the room with such a convincing mince that you fully expect Scrooge to enquire "are you free Mr. Marley" and then await a spectral "I'm free."

In a break with the book, and, for that matter, with other film versions, Marley returns and tells Scrooge that he is to become Lucifer's clerk, whereupon a line of hooded, burly, toned and topless male demons, with oiled bodies, proceed to wrap a chain around Scrooge, binding him to a post. You can't help but wonder, or perhaps it's just me, whether the Ghost of Christmas Present hasn't spiked Scrooge's drink and taken him to a dodgy pool party.

All in all, whilst not an outstanding version, this is certainly a reasonable adaptation, beautifully illustrated throughout, and it manages to cram Dickens story into a mere twenty five minutes without losing too much of either the atmosphere or the moral of the original.

All in all, this is a beautifully animated and thoroughly entertaining version of Dickens classic, and anyone who argues otherwise should be boiled with their own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through their heart!

The film itself is beautifully shot and, the moment it begins, you are overwhelmed with the sensation that you have been transported back to the 19th century; so much so that you can almost feel the cold of the chilly Christmas Eve engulfing you, as the acrid smoke, swirling through the air, seems to somehow fill your nostrils as your eyes alight upon the snowy, foggy streets of Victorian London, which, given the film was actually shot in Shrewsbury, is, to say the least, somewhat confusing. Still, it must be said, Shrewsbury makes a terrific bygone London.

As they gaze upon the shadow of things that Will be, he sets aside his slice of Papa Scrooge's Christmas Feast Pizza - with its goose, turkey and humbug topping - wipes the "secret recipe extra cholesterol seasonal sauce" from his lips, using the cuff of his cardigan; and allows his pudgy fingers to hammer furiously at his keyboard, a look of conceited indignation on his face, as he points out on IMDb that "this German-language hymn, written in Austria, wasn't translated into English until 1863...a full 20 years after Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol."

The Ghost isn't a particularly noteworthy apparition, but its shortcomings are more than compensated for by one of the most moving scenes of the entire film, in which Bob Cratchit sits down by the bed, on which reclines the body of his deceased Tiny Tim, to whom bids him a tearful farewell. The poignancy of the scene isn't even spoiled by the fact that Ben Tibber, playing the role of Tiny Tim, evidently finds difficulty in holding his breath and keeping his eyes shut with the camera full on him, and observant viewers will notice his eyelids tremble slightly at one stage.

Scrooge's Christmas morning transformation is, if I'm to be brutally honest, not as exuberant as in other versions, albeit, he does indulge in a snowball fight with the local children; and he does stop off to join in a rousing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" (which I think was around in 1843) at the Christmas Morning service in his local church; before ending his day by dropping in on nephew Fred, to seek his forgiveness and to atone for being a miserable old misanthrope during Fred's visit to him.

Patrick Stewart gives us a Scrooge that is, most certainly, different to the majority of the portrayals, but one that is both watchable and enjoyable; and it was a brave decision not to use prosthetics to age him, as has been done with other versions.

The depressing thing is that so many of the social issues that Dickens tackles in A Christmas Carol are, as this version makes you realise, still with us today, more than 170 years after he first highlighted them and railed against them.

Interestingly, however, in this version Marley is not dead to begin with. In fact, Marley doesn't even get a mention until 17 minutes and 39 seconds into the film, his introduction coming at the point when Scrooge arrives home and sees Marley's face on the doorknocker.

This heartless act is witnessed by his beloved fiancé, played by Jennifer Love Hewitt - and named Emily in this version, on account of the fact that Belle from the book had gone to Specsavers and had threatened legal action if they associated her name in any way with this adaptation - who promptly dumps him.

We get an unfamiliar "bugger it" from Scrooge, when he drops his keys on arriving at the front door; and a familiar, though exceedingly creepy, face of Marley, with his eyes closed, on the doorknocker when Scrooge, eventually, finds said keys and scrambles back to his feet. In this version, Scrooge even extends a curious, though cautious, hand to touch the face and, even though you instinctively know what's going to happen, you still jump out of your skin when it does happen. 2ff7e9595c