108 A Christmas Carol

First  watched :  24  December  1972

This  1971  adaptation  of  Charles  Dickens's  seasonal  novella  was  actually  made  in  the  US  even  though  it  mainly  featured  British  stalwarts  like  Alistair  Sim  and  Michael  Hordern  doing  the  voices. Richard  Williams  who  made  his  name  doing  animated  title  sequences   was  the  director  and  the  style  was  painstakingly  modelled  on  the  original  illustrations  in  Dickens's  first  edition. It  actually  won  the  Oscar  for  Best  Animated  Short  in  1972  even  though  it  was  made  for  and  originally  shown  on  television; a  rule  change  prevented  this  happening  thereafter. It  was  shown  three  times  here, 1972,1974  and  1978.

Parts  of  it  are  genuinely  terrifying , particularly  the  appearance  of  Scrooge's  damned  former  partner  Jacob  Marley ( above )  although  the  harrowing  Ghost  of  Christmas  Yet  To  Come  sequence  is  truncated  to  fit  the 25 minute  format  and  that's  my  only   gripe  with  the  adaptation . It's  simply  not  long  enough  to  do  the  story  justice.