REGENT THEATRE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20107, 29 November 1939, Page 3

REGENT THEATRE

‘A CHRISTMAS CAROL"

Read by millions for nearly a hundred years, played on the stage, and dramatised over the radio countless times, "A Christmas Carol," Charles Dickens’ immortal story of Yule'tide, at last has come to the audiences of the screen. Taken directly from the pages of Dickens, this delightful picture was screened to a large house at the Regent Theatre yesterday, bringing .Scrooge, Tiny Tim, the Crafchits, and the rest of the beloved character’s to life in an authentic reproduction of old London of Dickens’ day. Deftly directed by Edwin L. Marin, with Reginald Owen as Scrooge and Terry Kilburn, English boy actor discovered in "Lord Jell," as Tiny Tim, the picture reproduces almost every situation and speech exactly as written by the author. The story is known to the whole world; how the miser Bbenezer Scrooge sneers at the joy of Christmas, declaring it all "humbug”; how he discharges his clerk, Bob Cratchit, in a fit of rage; fohbids his nephew, Fred, to wed; refuses all charity. He is visited by the ghost of his former partner, Marley. bound in the chains of his own inhumanity on earth, and conducted by three spirits first to his youth and his happy Christmases of that time, then to Christmas Present, the misery among London’s teeming population contrasted with the Christmas joy and love in the home of Bob Cratchit With his family and crippled son, Tiny Tim. He learns that without his job Cratchit will not be able to provide treatment that will save the boy from death. He is shown the forgotten, untended grave bearing his name that will be his last resting place unless he changes. Regenerated, the miser spreads Christmas cheer, makes his nephew his partner that he may marry, re-employs Cratchit, and arranges for Tiny Tim’s care as the drama • closes with the child's speech, "God bless us.' every one.”