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"Alistair Sim in a performance to cherish"
Digitally remastered, Alistair Sim's Scrooge is the all time favourite Christmas family
film and a genuine classic of British cinema.
Scrooge is the definitive big screen adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol,
one of the world's best loved Christmas stories.
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It may be 50 years old, and shot in black and white, but the film has
lost none of its charm. The ultimate "feel good" movie, Scrooge has surfaced in many
filmic versions over the last 80 years (including a new version due out later this year), but none
have come close to this definitive version, owing largely to the fact that Alistair Sim's central
performance just can't be bettered.
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Sim's portrayal of Scrooge, as he is shown Chirstmas past, present
and future by three ghosts who visit him on Christmas eve, covers the gamut of emotions: from downright mean and curmudgeonly to
completely mad and finally to euphoric contentment. With an excellent supporting cast, including Sir Michael Hordern
and George Cole, a great script, and special effects that manage to work even in the effects-weary
cinema world of 2001, this film is a real treasure.
Highly Recommended! |
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Picture quality is excellent, given the age of the material, There
are frequent silver speckles but that is to be expected, and the digital remastering has
probably given us the best version of this film we're going to get.
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Extra's are a bit thin on the ground, but at an extremely low
price (about half the recommended price of a "standard" DVD release this is perhaps to
be expected. Even the usual "booklet"
has been reduced to a single-sided chapter list card. There are three very short actor biographies,
a chapter index, and then a few scenes from the "colorised" version of the film, that, while
interesting from a technical viewpoint (in terms of what can be achieved), only serve to show that films
originally shot in black and white should be left that way, if you don't want them to lose their charm
and appeal. Perhaps more importantly, from the "extra's" point of view, the whole movie could
have been included in its entirety in the colorised version too, given the paucity of everything else
on offer, so presentation of just a few scenes comes across as a bit of a missed opportunity.
Overall rating for
DVD extra's: "Disappointing"
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| Email: ian@iansmith.co.uk |
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