Trivia / A Christmas Carol (1984)

• Actor-Shared Background: Like this version of Scrooge, George C. Scott lost his mother as a child (albeit when he was seven years old, not as a baby).
• All-Star Cast:
  • Edward Woodward as the Ghost of Christmas Present.
  • One of the businessmen out soliciting money for the poor is Michael Gough who is best known as Alfred Pennyworth. (Ironically another Alfred Pennyworth played Scrooge himself eight years later.)
  • Mrs. Cratchit is Susannah York.
  • Belle is played by Lucy Gutteridge.
  • Beneath the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come's veil and robe is Michael Carter, the man who played Bib Fortuna.
• Doubling for London: Shrewsbury doubled for Victorian London. Scrooge's headstone can still be visited in the graveyard of St Chad's Church.
• Fake Brit: The American George C. Scott as the British Scrooge. He uses his own American accent, and it ends up working in the film's favor.
• Playing Against Type:
  • David Warner, mostly associated with powerful, intimidating and villainous characters like Cal Hockley's Dragon Spicer Lovejoy, Evil, Ra's al Ghul, the Archmage and the Master Control Program, here plays the poor, earnest, kind-hearted family man Bob Cratchit.
  • And to a lesser extend Roger Rees, who played Scrooge's nephew Fred. Most people nowadays either think of him as The Sheriff of Rottingham or as James MacPherson.
    • In the 1996 made for TV version of Titanic, Rees and Scott work together again, this time with Rees playing a shrewd businessman Ismay opposite Scott's friendly and sociable Captain Smith.
• Real-Life Relative: Two of the Cratchit children, Belinda and the unnamed middle son, are played by Susannah York's actual children, Sasha and Orlando Wells.
• Scully Box: Edward Woodward was only 5'9", whereas George C. Scott was 6'0".
  • For some scenes, Shrewbury resident, the late Martin Wood, stood in for Woodward.
• What Could Have Been: Leo McKern was originally cast as The Ghost of Christmas Present.

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