A Christmas Carol

The only character in Dickens' sentimental tale who never stuck in one's craw was the pre-reformation Scrooge, and so it seems exactly right that Donner's movie should rest entirely on the solid shoulders of George C Scott. His intelligence and quickness at last give us a Scrooge of many dimensions; a man of tortured and forbidding nobility, made cruel by uncaring parentage and a malign fate, rather than the usual thin miser. The fact that he is also one of nature's monetarists does not go unnoticed. As to the rest: Shrewsbury looks well enough under snow; one can enjoy the urge to kick away the crutch of a more than usually repellent Tiny Tim; and only Roger Rees (as Scrooge's nephew) suggests that goodness might be vertebrate. CPea.