A Christmas Carol (1971)

Richard Williams.

‘I am the Ghost of Christmas Present…’

In the true spirit of Christmas, here’s my first bonus film recommendation. It’s Richard Williams’ A Christmas Carol (1971), one of the best (and certainly the most stylish) adaptation(s) of the Dickens classic, featuring the voices of Alastair Sim, Sir Michael Hordern, Diana Quick, Sir Michael Redgrave and Joan Sims. I’m also planning to send you several other bonus films over Christmas. Looking ahead, these will remain on the archive for free subscribers.

Right. Zoom back in time to the morning of Christmas Eve, 1972, and I’m watching this with my grandparents on BBC1. I’m seven years old. And it made a terrific impact- so much so that I still have to watch it every Christmas Eve, year in, year out, in my own little ritual.

‘… the wood engravings of Gustave Doré.’

How many adaptations of A Christmas Carol are there? I’ve lost count. Scrooge (1951), starring Alastair Sim and Michael Hordern, immediately springs to mind. As does, surprisingly, Patrick Stewart’s rather goodish- and touching- television movie from 1999. And then there’s The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992), rated by contrarians as the most faithful of all the Christmas Carol films. By cruel irony, Dickens actually paid Chapman & Hall to publish A Christmas Carol, which became an instant bestseller in December, 1843. The first edition sold out by Christmas Eve- a sumptuous production in red cloth with gilt-edged pages, priced at five shillings (£26 in today’s money). Of course, mention Dickens today and A Christmas Carol’s the one everybody remembers- to such an extent, I think, that Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim are now part of the English psyche- alongside Robin Hood, James Bond and Sherlock Holmes.

Capturing the true spirit of A Christmas Carol is no mean feat: it’s what separates the turkey from the golden goose; Richard Williams’ delightful film has to be up there with the best. It’s a literary animation- and so much the better for that- based on the original 19th century etchings of John Leech, the wood engravings of Gustave Doré and the 1930s drawings of Milo Winter. Think 1960s and think Victorian revival. You name it: from Stephenson’s Rocket to King’s Road surplus scarlet; from Victorian restaurant typography to Penny Farthings (as brandished by Number Six); from William Morris wallpaper to The Great Exhibition- Queen Victoria Ruled Okay. Richard Williams’ A Christmas Carol could only have been made at a certain time: its intense Victorian atmosphere seen from the prism of the early 1970s; a look, I suspect, today’s animators might struggle to reproduce.

Inspired by the title page: A Christmas Carol, Chapman & Hall, 1843.

Williams understood the sensibilities of the Victorian era. His innovative animations for Tony Richardson’s The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968) are based on Punch cartoons drawn at the time of the Crimean War. Likewise, in A Christmas Carol, Scrooge’s panelled Clerkenwell chambers are brought to life in all their dingy, shadowy, four-postered Dickensian glory.

‘Business! Mankind is my business…’

‘This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.’

And the darker aspects of A Christmas Carol, quite rightly, are very much part of the brief. It is, after, all a ghost story- one of the greatest ghost stories in literature- set at the time of the Industrial Revolution (and all that comes with it) and the film includes sequences young children may find frightening. And so much the better for that: avoiding (as much as I love early Disney) the saccharine, schmaltzy sentimentality of that otherwise distinguished studio. Look out for Ignorance and Want: two terrifying slum urchins cowering beneath the robes of the Ghost of Christmas Present.

‘The darker aspects of A Christmas Carol, quite rightly, are very much part of the brief…’

‘An intelligent boy!… a remarkable boy!’

Williams’ studio drew the animation by hand, in pencil, over and over again- a work of mind-boggling minutiae and complexity. Part of the course back then, before the dreaded CGI changed everything. In 1972, Richard Williams won a deserved Oscar for the ‘Best Animated Short Film’. 

‘I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off, one by one, until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you…’

A Christmas Carol (1971) is a truly wonderful film (all 25 glorious minutes of it), an aesthete’s delight. And until recently, it was more or less unavailable. As far as I can tell, there’s no official DVD, and, at the time of writing, I’m not aware of a digital download. That said, admirers have posted full length versions on YouTube- several recordings of surprising quality- and perfectly acceptable to watch.

‘an aesthete’s delight…’

I hope you enjoyed this review- my first Christmas bonus post for Luke Honey's Weekend Flicks. I'm posting a new film recommendation every Friday morning (London time) so please join me over the coming weeks. It’s going to be fun.

Please subscribe by pushing the button below, and I look forward to your erudite comments. Newsletters will be free for the time being, but- looking ahead- I plan to move to a paid subscription model. Honestly, the holes in my socks worry me. And it would be nice to turn on the gas every once in a while. 

My current thinking is a modest £5 a month, or £50 a year, which I reckon (maths was never my strong point) works out at approximately 96p per film (if you go for the yearly £50 option)- a bargain. And for free subscribers, there'll be a bonus post every six weeks or so (although I’m planning several bonus posts for Christmas) which won't cost you a penny and will remain free to read via the Luke Honey’s Weekend Flicks archive.