A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol is a 1999 British-American made-for-television film adaptation of Charles Dickens' 1843 novella A Christmas Carol that was first televised December 5, 1999, on TNT. It was directed by David Jones and stars Patrick Stewart as Ebenezer Scrooge and Richard E. Grant as Bob Cratchit. The film was produced after Patrick Stewart performed a series of successful one-man shows of A Christmas Carol on Broadway and in London. Plot On Christmas Eve 1843, Ebenezer Scrooge, a surly money-lender at a counting house, who has run the business himself for seven years since his business partner Jacob Marley died, does not share the merriment of Christmas. He declines his nephew Fred's invitation to join him for Christmas dinner and dismisses two gentlemen collecting money for charity. Scrooge reluctantly gives his loyal, low-paid employee Bob Cratchit Christmas off, as there will be no business for Scrooge during the day. In his house, Scrooge encounters the tortured ghost of Marley, who warns Scrooge to repent of his wicked ways to avoid being condemned in the afterlife, as Marley has been. Marley tells Scrooge that three spirits will visit him during the next three nights, regardless of Scrooge's reluctance, and to expect the first ghost at one o'clock. At one o'clock, Scrooge is visited by the angel-like Ghost of Christmas Past, who takes him back in time to his childhood and early adult life. They visit his lonely school days in boarding school, where his friends were all going home for Christmas but he is not allowed, because his father treated him badly after his mother died. Scrooge's sister, Fran, the mother of Scrooge's nephew, comes to Scrooge's school and their father is a lot nicer, agreeing that he could come home for Christmas. The ghost shows Scrooge as an employee of Albert Fezziwig, who had a benevolent heart and acted as a second father to Scrooge. Fezziwig throws a Christmas party, Scrooge attends and meets a young woman named Belle, with whom he falls in love and gets engaged. However, the Ghost shows Scrooge why Belle left him: he chose money over her. A tearful Scrooge extinguishes the Ghost as he finds himself back in bed.