"A CHRISTMAS CAROL/SCROOGE" 1951 Alastair Sim on DVD (1 Viewer)

[Mike Frezon]

"You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell me why?"

"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?"

Scrooge trembled more and more.

"Or would you know," pursued the Ghost, "the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!"

 

[Dave Mack]

awesome, Mike!
I looked for it today locally here in Berkeley at 2 stores with no luck. No Kubrick BD's either.

dang dvdpacifiic!

 

[RobertGr]

I received the disc and eagerly put on the special features. The interview with George Cole is wondeful as is the commentary track with him. Covers great British film history. The trailers are great to see and it is great to see the difference in how the film was sold to English and American audiences via the respective trailer. The film itself is the best this title has looked! The soundtrack though is a different situation. The 5.1 has a terrible echo wans the 2.0 has distortion to it. To be fair the other disc releases via VCI's earlier efforts all had hiss on the soundtrack this release gets rid of that hiss but the result is an annoying distortion in several scenes. I would say a 4 star release that could have been a 5 if the soundtrack issues were resolved.

 

[Ron68]

I would have bought this new edition, if I hadn't bought the earlier VCI release last year. I'm happy with it but I would have like to have seen some of the new extras.

I don't think I've ever read the book but, having only seen the movie, I always thought that Marley was given the same chance to change like Scrooge but either couldn't or wouldn't. Maybe Marley could have, had he had a ghost visit him like he did to Scrooge. I didn't see anything to suggest that the 3 spirits didn't visit him or anyone else over the years for that matter.

 

[Dan McW]

I have a 1993 ABC tape of it that predates the Anchor Bay one by about five years. I think those are the only two home-video issues of the Chuck Jones version.

 

[Marvin]

That was in episode 1 of the prequel...

Next year, they'll release "Fezziwig Strikes Back."

 

[John Hodson]

I'd like to see some screencaps but it does sound like a ringer for the UK R2 transfer of last year.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Nothing yet, Dave?!

Still seeing Christmas music in stores...but only one has had ANY Christmas DVDs out.

Probably as soon as Halloween is over...

 

[Harry-N]

I've uploaded a few jpeg screen captures from the new restored release of A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

First is the previously missing scene of the hand grabbing the book from the shelf:









These two of the Cratchit family at the table represent the way the film sometimes lapses into a lesser quality print. Perhaps you can see the loss of resolution in the second one, and even a change of the "coloration" of the black and white print. The second one has more of a yellowish cast to it.





Overall, this is a fine release, flaws and all, but those hoping for a CITIZEN KANE-style restoration will have to perhaps wait for another day or make do with this version.

Harry

 

[Mike Frezon]

Thanks, Harry.

That shot of the hand reaching up to the books is....priceless.

 

[John Hodson]

Hmmm; hard to say, but there seems to be slightly less of the sometimes harsh contrast as found on the R2, however there's no sudden drop in quality as described in the last two 'caps on the UK edition, so it does look like the transfers are from different sources.

 

[Mike Frezon]

I was thinking the screencaps don't look as sharp as I would have expected...but, then again, screencaps are tricky things.

I've seen some look horrible and then the DVD looked great. And, vice-versa. I'm just happy to see/hear the opening sequence has been restored.

 

[Harry-N]

Screencaps are a bit tricky, and I can say that when I play the movie in my standard DVD player and display it on the HTDV, things look a lot sharper than what is seen here. They are just "lossy" jpeg files afterall, so really they're just to give an *idea* of how the film looks.

Harry

 

[James Phillips]

It looks like this edition's cropped on all four sides.

Compare the above caps to these ones from the R2:

 

[Mike Frezon]

They look reasonably close to me...unless I'm missing something:

R1


R2


A little seems missing from the right-hand side of the frame, I guess.

 

[WilliamMcK]

I don't know, the cropping looks fairly significant to me. I'm not a fan of PAL speed-up so I'll stick to Region 1, but even more distressing to me than the cropping is the lack of sharpness to the VCI release as compared to the Region 2. Still, I'm glad that the opening credits are now complete. I guess I'll be content, it will certainly look better than I've ever seen it before.

 

[MarcoBiscotti]

I wish the 1970/1971 (??) Richard Williams animated Christmas Carol special would have been licensed/included as an extra feature of the new VCI package.

 

[Dave Mack]

Wow. The PAL version indeed looks Noticeably sharper.

Which version is that...?

 

[John Hodson]

It's this version.

 

[WilliamMcK]

Ouch! 19.99 GBP comes to more than $40.00. But I'll say this--based on the screen caps--you know where the extra money is going.