A Christmas Carol (1951)

Michael Hordern: Jacob Marley

Photos 

Quotes 

• Jacob Marley : I wear the chain I forged in life! I made it link by link and yard by yard! I gartered it on of my own free will and by my own free will, I wore it!

• Ebenezer Scrooge : You have my sympathy.

  Jacob Marley : Ah! You do not know the weight and length of strong chain you bear yourself! It was as full and as long as this seven Christmas eves ago and you have labored on it since. Ah, it is a ponderous chain!

• Ebenezer Scrooge : Who are you?

  Jacob Marley : Ask me who I was.

  Ebenezer Scrooge : All right, all right, who WERE you then?

  Jacob Marley : In life, I was your partner, Jacob Marley.

  Ebenezer Scrooge : Well, in that case, CAN you sit down?

  Jacob Marley : I can.

• Jacob Marley : In life, my spirit never rose beyond the limits of our money-changing holes! Now I am doomed to wander without rest or peace, incessant torture and remorse!

  Ebenezer Scrooge : But it was only that you were a good man of business, Jacob!

  Jacob Marley : BUSINESS? Mankind was my business! Their common welfare was my business! And it is at this time of the rolling year that I suffer most!

• Ebenezer Scrooge : You see that toothpick?

  Jacob Marley : I do.

  Ebenezer Scrooge : But you're not looking at it!

  Jacob Marley : Yet I see it, notwithstanding.

  Ebenezer Scrooge : Well, then, I'll just swallow this and be tortured by a legion of hobgoblins, all of my own creation! It's all HUMBUG, I tell you, HUMBUG!

• Jacob Marley : Look to see me no more. But look here, that you may remember for your own sake what has passed between us!

  Ebenezer Scrooge : Why do they lament?

  Jacob Marley : They seek to interfere for good in human matters, and have lost their power forever.

• Jacob Marley : It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow men! If it goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death! It is doomed to wander through the world! Oh, woe is me! And witness what it cannot share but MIGHT HAVE SHARED on Earth and turned to happiness!

• Ebenezer Scrooge : What do you want with me?

  Jacob Marley : Much.

• Ebenezer Scrooge : [as Marley lies on his deathbed]  Well, Jacob! Have they seen to you properly? Last rites and such?

  [Marley nods] 

  Ebenezer Scrooge : There's nothing I can do?

  [Marley nods again] 

  Ebenezer Scrooge : Oh? What, particularly?

  Jacob Marley : [rasping]  While... there's still time...

  Ebenezer Scrooge : Time? Time for what?

  Jacob Marley : [rasping]  Wrong... we were wrong.

  Ebenezer Scrooge : Wrong? Well, we can't be right all the time, can we? Nobody's perfect. You mustn't reproach yourself, Jacob. We've been no worse than the next man, or no better if it comes to that.

  Jacob Marley : [rasping]  Save... yourself.

  Ebenezer Scrooge : Save myself? Save myself from what?

  [Marley breathes his last] 

  Ebenezer Scrooge : Speak...!

  [pauses as he realizes Marley is dead]