News Photo by James Andersen Presque Isle resident Karl Momrik is pictured with just a few of the nearly two dozen versions of ‘A Christmas Carol’ in his movie collection. Momrik’s collection of ‘A Christmas Carol’ movies includes several animated retellings, several musicals, and several live-action versions of the story.

PRESQUE ISLE — Karl Momrik spends a lot of time with Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim around the holidays.

Among the hundreds of DVDs in Momrik’s collection are many versions of ‘A Christmas Carol’ — 23 to be exact.

It’s a fun hobby each winter for the Presque Isle resident to watch different versions of the popular holiday classic, which relates the transformation of the miserly Scrooge after he’s visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come.

“What’s so exciting is that they’re not all exactly the same,” Momrik said. “They’re all acted out differently — obviously because you got a different Ebenezer Scrooge in each one. The scripts are pretty close on most of them, you know? But it’s just the fact that I can see a different one that just makes it all the more special.”

Momrik’s stack of ‘A Christmas Carol’ movies covers a wide spectrum of the many retellings of Charles Dickens’ beloved holiday story.

There are several animated versions of the film in his collection, including ‘Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol’ from 1962, the Rankin-Bass-produced ‘Stingiest Man in Town’ from 1978, ‘An All Dogs Christmas Carol’ from 1988, ‘Mickey’s Christmas Carol’ from 1983 and ‘A Christmas Carol’ from 2009, starring Jim Carrey as Scrooge and the three ghosts.

The live-action renditions in Momrik’s collection include TV versions of the film from 1984 and 1999 starring George C. Scott and Patrick Stewart respectively as Scrooge, ‘Scrooge’ from 1951 starring Alastair Sim, ‘An American Christmas Carol’ from 1979 starring Henry Winkler and ‘A Christmas Carol’ from 1954, a musical adaptation starring Basil Rathbone and Fredric March.

‘Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol,’ the first animated Christmas special produced specifically for TV, aired in 1962 and was the first version of the story Momrik saw.

“Jim Backus was the star of the show, but it was mostly a happy (retelling),” Momrik said. “It really didn’t dig into a lot of (adult themes). This was mostly a happy one with Jim Backus singing songs, you know, but it was good because I didn’t know any other version.”

His favorite retelling of the story is Sim’s turn as Scrooge in the 1951 live-action movie. Considered by some film enthusiasts to be one of, if not the definitive, rendition of the story, Momrik said Sim’s performance is always fun to watch.

As he attempts to watch his entire collection this holiday season, Sim’s performance was one of the first ones Momrik watched this year during the Thanksgiving weekend.

“He’s such a good actor…and I love that time period,” Momrik said. “I love to watch those British movies, you know, and most of these are set in England somewhere. Just the way that he acts, just the scenes, all the people in it, I just think it’s the greatest.”

The collection began by buying VHS tapes. As technology evolved, Momrik transferred some of his VHS tapes to DVD and bought many different DVD versions of the story too.

He’s not done adding to it either. Momrik said he has a few more versions on the way, including a 13-minute silent movie version from 1910 — one of the earliest film adaptations of the story.

Momrik said he appreciates the entire collection, whether he’s watching an animated version, the different interpretations of the story in one of many live-action versions or even the visual spectacle of Carrey’s 2009 screen-capture performance.

“A lot of people didn’t care that much for (the 2009 version) because this one broke away a lot from (usual retellings) but it was the visual effects that were amazing and it shows the staying power of this movie,” Momrik said. “This was out in 2009 and it grossed $325 million dollars worldwide. You know that just shows that the story never dies.”

Dickens’ novella is more than 150 years old, but the story’s themes of Christmas and transformation and growth continue to resonate with Momrik and are a big reason why the movie remains a staple in his home during the holidays.

“Charles Dickens was just a literary genius,” Momrik said. “The way he could make someone… anybody can change. And in those visits, it took visits of three ghosts to make him change, because he didn’t change much on the first one. He was just pretty much upset about everything. Then he saw the next one and he kind of started edging toward it and then the other one just scared the bejesus out of them.”