The best animated adaptation of A Christmas Carol ever done is the 1971 Chuck Jones production. It remains a high standard for any animated version that has followed.
This was the version of A Christmas Carol I watched every year as a child side-by-side with the 1969 animated version. This version also scared the heck out of me when I was a child!
Two animation greats are attached to this: Chuck Jones (Warner Bros. cartoons, How the Grinch Stole Christmas) and Richard Williams (director of animation for Who Framed Roger Rabbit).
Inspired by the original John Leech illustrations from the original printing of A Christmas Carol, the animation successfully uses rapid scene changes and pans, zooms, and subtle coloring for moody and frightening effects. It obviously was not intended for a juvenile audience which is why it successfully creeped me out as a child.
I remember watching it from its first airing in 1971 and the next few years after as a network station offering. Then it occasionally appeared on local stations as a syndicated option before seeming to vanish for many years. By the time I was a teenager, it had all but disappeared, at least in the region I lived. I couldn’t describe my excitement when I found it on VHS when first released in the late 1980’s. Even viewing it the first time as an adult since childhood, it did not disappoint; it was everything I had remembered. (How often does that happen?)
Adding to its greatness is some of the voice talent. Alastair Sim, Scrooge from the classic 1951 film Scrooge, reprises the role and provides the voice for Ebenezer Scrooge. Joining him from the same ’51 film is Michael Hordern reprising his role of Jacob Marley; Hordern would go on to play Scrooge in the 1977 BBC television version. The great Michael Redgrave lends his voice as narrator. Someone I didn’t know until I saw again as an adult is Diana Quick (Julia from the incredible Brideshead Revisited mini-series) providing the voice of The Ghost of Christmas Past.
It’s amazing how much of Dickens’ story this offers in its short length of 25 minutes. The rapid changes mentioned above advance the story very quickly. Lines from Dickens’ novella are used with a clever economy to go along with the faced paced visuals.
This was the first version I ever saw that had the phantom hearse. The inclusion of the phantom hearse became a standard I always looked for in other versions and used it as personal judgement criteria with other versions. The audio-visual creation of Scrooge ascending the stairs in his house so successfully convey the cavernousness of the house as Dickens described it.
Jacob Marley is terrifying. When he removes the cloth band around his head making his jaw drop wide open as he wails is the stuff of nightmares. His mouth hangs open, never moving, during his entire dialogue with Scrooge. It’s a good thing I was a very young lover of horror films as a child. As scary as it was, I couldn’t look away and, as young as I was, the story transfixed me. (I think about when a beloved aunt used to tell me about listening to A Christmas Carol on the radio in the 1940’s with all her attention glued to the radio as she listened.)
This is the best Ghost of Christmas Past! This Ghost of Christmas Past (voiced by Diana Quick) is one of the best successfully realized from Dickens’ work. The surreal, metamorphosing entity with the extinguisher cap is close to Dickens’ description: “…the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness….” This depiction is what I always seemed to compare other representations from whenever I watched them. Although the voice, features, and dress are feminine, Scrooge addresses the ghost as “Sir” exactly like the source novella.
Finally, there is the depiction of Ignorance & Want; not only are they included, but they are another nightmare depiction that visually represent the danger the Ghost of the Present warns of.
Amazingly, this very short version even manages to get in the coal miners, lighthouse, and ship during the visit of the Ghost of Christmas Present. We even get a quick glimpse of Bob Cratchit crying over the corpse of Tiny Tim which is not often done.
Tiny Tim’s Song
This is the ONLY version I personally have known that has Tiny Tim singing a song “about a lost child travelling in the snow” (from the novella).
This is another one of those that is a “must see” version. It’s the best animated version, hands down, but be cautious before letting children view it. Ironically, the first time I found it released on VHS in the 1980’s, it was a Fisher-Price produced video tape! Unfortunately, I’ve yet to find it on a DVD release so you either have to watch a VHS copy or find somewhere online to watch it streaming on Amazon.
