SCROOGE, 1970, Hollywood Classics, 113 min. Albert Finney is a gleefully wicked Scrooge in this glorious musical adaptation by Leslie Bricusse of Dickens’ ode to brotherhood and the terrible power of karma. Director Ronald Neame was a longtime Dickens veteran, having produced David Lean’s GREAT EXPECTATIONS and OLIVER TWIST; here, he proved himself to be a wonderfully humorous and sympathetic filmmaker in his own right. Co-starring Alec Guinness, Edith Evans and Kenneth More.

If screwball comedies were about criminal entanglements instead of romantic ones - and if they featured dialogue by Truman Capote - they would resemble this delightful adventure spoof. Jennifer Jones plays a compulsive liar traveling to Africa with her husband when she meets Humphrey Bogart, who’s been enlisted by a group of criminals (including Robert Morley and Peter Lorre) eager to acquire a uranium mine. Bogart lost a bundle of money and several teeth making the film, but it remains among the most distinctive and entertaining of his career. Costarring Gina Lollobrigida.

Michael Caine and Sean Connery are two British soldier-pals trying to bamboozle high priests of remote Kafiristan into turning over their riches by convincing them that Connery is a god. With Christopher Plummer as Rudyard Kipling (whose short story inspired the film).