Itinerary, December 1, Part 2
Rick Retro’s Realm, Project #1: 2024 Christmas Tour – Lots and lots of early Scrooge.
Now that we’ve read the original novella for comparison purposes, our visual journey can begin.
Later we’ll get to a couple of the best adaptations of this Dickens Christmas standard, but we’ll start with the earliest.
From 1901 to 1928, ten films based on Scrooge’s travails were made. Nine were short films (40 minutes or less). Two of the shorts and the feature-length film are lost and must be skipped. All are in black and white, all are silent films except for the final stop. We have seven stops to make but they’re all short.
To watch them, go to YouTube and search on the title, followed by the year. For many, there will be a number of options, with varying picture quality and different added music (which can really impact your enjoyment, but I don’t have time or desire to rate every variation, so I’ll pick one and go for it.) Tip: check the runtime to verify you’re on the right video.
Off we go to:
1901 “Scrooge, or, Marley’s Ghost” (6 min, 20 sec) /£ (the £ meaning it’s a British film)
We skip the lost short film:
1908 “A Christmas Carol”
But we can visit:
1910 “A Christmas Carol” (13 min)
We skip this lost Italian film:
1910 “Il sogno dell’usuraio” /€IT
Two stops in Dickens’ home country follow:
1913 “Scrooge” /£ (aka “Old Scrooge”) (40 min)
1914 “A Christmas Carol” /£ (22 min)
Then we skip the first feature based on Scrooge, as it’s lost:
1916 The Right to Be Happy
Our last three stops remain in jolly ole England:
1922 “Scrooge” /£ (18 min, but that original version is lost, they later released a version with sound at 10 min, and we can watch that.)
1923 “Scrooge” (aka “A Christmas Carol”) /£ (25 min)
1928 “Scrooge” /£ (9 min)
Alas, our last stop is the first “Scrooge” short with a soundtrack, but only the soundtrack has survived! We can listen on YouTube but search “Scrooge 1926” instead—it's mislabeled.
We’ve seen 7 movies in about 2 hours and with reading the novella, that’s a long day. It gets easier from here, promise!
Don't forget the popcorn!
Originally posted to text group 2024-12-01
Last updated 2025-02-13