Category Archives: 4-Icons
Scrooge Month Day 11: Carface Carruthers in AN ALL DOGS CHRISTMAS CAROL (1998)
Director: Paul Sabella, Gary Selvaggio
Writer: Jymn Magon, based on A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Cast: Ernest Borgnine, Dom DeLuise, Sheena Easton, Taylor Emerson, Bebe Neuwirth, Charles Nelson Reilly, Steven Weber, Dee Bradley Baker, Ashley Tisdale
Notes: This TV movie was the third and (so far) final film in the All Dogs Go to Heaven series, and also followed the popular TV show based on the films. In this version the evil dog Carface (Ernest Borgnine) harasses other dogs for bones and money and the like just before Christmas, prompting Charlie (Steven Weber) to re-enact A Christmas Carol in an attempt to set him straight: Itchy (Dom DeLuise) becomes Christmas Past, Sasha (Sheena Easton) Christmas Present, and Charlie Himself becomes Christmas Yet to Come. I’ll be honest, I’ve never seen an All Dogs Go to Heaven movie or TV show before, so other than the fact that it’s about dead dogs, I really don’t know what to expect. The only reason I even own this film is because it was included in a pack of animated Christmas movies on DVD I got a while back, so reviewing it will be an experience.
Thoughts: The film has a cute enough framing sequence – puppy angels (try not to let the obvious implications of that be depressing) ask the angel Annabella (Bebe Neuwirth) for a story, and she tells about how her favorite dogs once stopped her evil cousin Belladonna (Neuwirth again) from ruining Christmas. As the film shifts from Heaven down to a San Francisco decorated for the holidays, it’s clear from the production values that this was created on a TV budget. I try not to hold that against the movie – after all, so was the Flintstones special four years earlier – but the animation is really stiff compared to many of the other animated versions of A Christmas Carol we’ve watched. I also have to deduct points for an obvious “Santa Paws” joke in the first five minutes.
Despite the notes at the beginning, the film takes a long time to get to the actual Christmas Carol content, going through this long opening slog in which Belladonna plans to hypnotize every dog in the city with a giant dog whistle or… or something like that. I’ve got to admit, my attention started to wander, because this most definitely is not a movie for me. Eventually, Annabella gives Charlie a magic amulet that allows him to pull the Dickens bit on Carface, with Charlie sort of taking on the Marley role to introduce the segment. It’s here that the Carface character finally gets some (and by some I mean “any”) depth. The trip to Christmas Past shows Carface as a puppy, loved by a child but put out into the cold and rain one Christmas. It’s about as sad a sight as I’ve ever seen in animation, actually, a pit bull with a beanie propeller walking away from a kid who used to love him.
Christmas Present grinds the movie to a halt with a lame villains song about how the big bad and the minion have differing feelings about Christmas. The whole time I listened to it, I kept thinking that Bebe Neuwirth deserved better. Anyway, eventually Sasha gets around to showing Carface little Timmy, a puppy with a lame leg who was among the dogs he robbed earlier in the movie. (I suspect Timmy was NOT a regular on the TV show.) As it turns out, the money Carface stole was earmarked for a life-saving operation for Timmy, and although the puppy shows heart, he doesn’t have any sort of physical prowess. This is the first version of the story where we get an actual direct link between “Scrooge” and Tim’s death – most of the time it’s just implied that the Cratchits couldn’t afford decent medical care because of Bob’s low wages. Here there’s no denying it’s entirely Carface’s fault.
Then a boring reprise of the boring song that started Christmas Present. Ernest Borgnine – you were great, but if Bebe Neuwirth can’t make the song fly, you don’t really have a chance.
In Christmas Future, we skip the usual preliminaries where Scrooge doesn’t know who they’re talking about and go straight to Carface’s cronies talking about how glad they are to be rid of him. It’s a surprisingly edgy way to approach the subject. Then Charlie kicks off a musical number that parodies – of all things – The Mask to show Carface he’s going down to Hell if he doesn’t change his ways. Which, now that I think about it completely contradicts the title of the franchise. Actually, if all dogs go to Heaven, what incentive do dogs have to behave? They’re going to Heaven anyway, right? Either the title is lying or there’s a huge cosmic loophole here. I’m really giving it far more thought that it deserves, but it’s that or give my complete attention to this lousy musical number, so I’m going to stick with the pontificating for a bit. Christmas Future ends with Carface realizing he was a heel for helping her in her evil scheme and setting out to stop her. Which he does, of course, because kids’ movie. And at the end he gives back everything he stole and Timmy lives and I check my blood sugar levels because I’m afraid they’ve gotten dangerously high.
I like good all-ages movies, ask anybody, but I think the mistake a lot of people make is that by assuming you’re making something for a children’s market means that it’s okay to make something that fails as entertainment for everybody else. To put it another way: when a Christmas-loving musical theatre nerd like myself wants to start fast-forwarding through every song in your movie, you have done something wrong.
There are numerous shows and movie throughout history that prove this simply doesn’t have to be the case: the Looney Tunes, the Flintstones, the Muppets, Animaniacs, Phineas and Ferb and the entire Pixar library come to mind. That makes me considerably less forgiving of a film like this one, where the jokes are stale, the songs are weak, and the animation stodgy, because the creators just assumed nobody over the age of 8 was going to watch it. The thing is, it’s the franchises that do have that crossover appeal that turn out to be long-lasting and classic. I still look forward to the Muppet and Disney specials every year. I don’t remember the last time I heard anyone mention All Dogs Go to Heaven.
I do give the film credit in one instance – although we’ve thrice seen films about characters performing A Christmas Carol, this is the first one we’ve gotten where the characters deliberately invoke Dickens in order to effect change in someone who needs to learn a lesson. I’ve read a few stories based around that trope in books and comics (my personal favorite is Teen Titans #13 from 1967, “TT’s Swingin’ Christmas Carol” for you cool cats in the know), but for such an obvious idea, precious few movie adaptations have activated it.
My unfamiliarity with the property kind of kills my enjoyment of it. This movie builds on character relationships established in two prior movies and a whole TV series, and as I haven’t seen any of them, I feel like I’m left out of the joke. I get why this was the finale, though – it essentially ends with the redemption of (I assume) the primary villain of the TV show, which isn’t exactly something you can do during the run of the series without altering the dynamic dramatically, and an after-school kids’ show circa 1998 wasn’t about to take that sort of chance while it was still on the air. As it is, all I can really say is that the film is at best serviceable and inoffensive, but unless you’re already a fan of the franchise, it’s just not going to do it for you.
The first Reel to Reel study, Mutants, Monsters and Madmen, is now available as a $2.99 eBook in the Amazon Kindle store and Smashwords.com bookstore. And you can find links to all of my novels, collections, and short stories, in their assorted print, eBook and audio forms, at the Now Available page!
Scrooge Month Day 10: Fred Flintstone in A FLINTSTONES CHRISTMAS CAROL (1994)
Director: Joanna Romersa
Writer: Glenn Leopold, based on A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Cast: Henry Corden, Jean Vander Pyl, Frank Welker, B.J. Ward, Russi Taylor, Don Messick, John Stephenson, Marsha Clark, Will Ryan, Brian Cummings, John Rhys-Davies, Joan Gerber, Maurice LaMarche, Rene Levant
Notes: This TV movie has become a staple of the Cartoon Network family of TV channels in recent years. Like Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, this film also uses the conceit of the familiar characters putting on a theatrical production of the classic novel by “Charles Brickens”(voiced by John Rhys-Davies). The Flintstones do much more with that concept than Magoo did, though. There are a few Flintstones-centric subplots that run through the story – Fred (Henry Corden) is so caught up with playing Scrooge that he’s ignoring his friends and family at Christmas and allowing his ego to overwhelm him. Wilma (Jean Vander Pyl) is the stage manager of the play, which leaves her hands full to begin with, but things get even worse as different members of the cast come down the with 24-hour “Bedrock Bug” and are unable to perform. Adaptations of A Christmas Carol featuring classic characters seem to be cursed – like Clarence Nash saying goodbye to Donald Duck in Mickey’s Christmas Carol, this was the final time Vander Pyl, Wilma’s original voice, played the character before her passing. Besides Fred as Ebonezer Scrooge (get it?), the Christmas Carol cast includes Barney Rubble (Frank Welker) as Bob Cragit, Betty (B.J. Ward) as Mrs. Cragit, Bamm-Bamm (Don Messick) as Tiny Tim, and Fred’s boss Mr. Slate (John Stephenson) as Jacob Marbley. Wilma gets called upon to play several parts as the actors drop out, including Belle and Christmas Past. The other Ghosts and the rest of the significant roles are filled by obscure or new Flintstones characters.
Thoughts: This film came out at a weird time in Flintstones history. It was the same year as the weak live-action Flintstones movie, and a year after two made-for-TV Flintstones movies which featured Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm as adults getting married, then having babies (twins). For them to step back to the classic era of the cartoon the next year was an interesting choice, but seeing as how they’ve done very little (by which I mean nothing) with the older versions of the characters in the two decades since, I imagine this film was their quiet concession that the characters work best frozen in the eternal forms they enjoyed in the classic TV series.
This is all to say: it’s a pretty good movie.
The Christmas Carol segments are relatively faithful to the book. The characters are true to themselves and they each fill the expected, suitable niche in the story. After watching nine different Christmas Carols though – eight of which are more or less straight-up retellings of the novel – it’s a nice change of pace to see this rendition. With the wraparound story, we don’t actually start the retelling of A Christmas Carol until a full 16 minutes into this 69-minute film. Once we actually get there, it’s nice to see some real “acting,” such as it is. Fred as Scrooge, for example. While it’s true he’s often a loud, obnoxious blowhard in the classic cartoons, he’s almost never pictured as being particularly stingy or cruel. In fact, the character’s biggest fault is that he goes to outrageous extremes in an attempt to provide a life far beyond his reach for his wife and daughter, hardly the actions of a traditional Scrooge. To compensate for the fact that Fred-as-Scrooge isn’t as obvious a comparison as, say, Scrooge McDuck, the movie takes its time to show you how being the star of the play has inflated his ego. Now they’re playing off an established character trait to turn his friends and family against him, making him a better fit for the part. The Fred-centric subplot runs throughout the film, whenever a scene of the “play” ends. He comes offstage bragging about the applause he’s gotten, frustrating Barney and Wilma to no end. It gets even worse when intermission hits and he realizes he left the presents he bought for Wilma and Pebbles at the store, then races out of the theatre to try to fetch them. He winds up having to break into the store, only to get busted by the police. Lucky for him, it’s his buddy Philo Quartz (Rene Lavert), who’s playing Christmas Future and needs to get him back to the theatre in time.
During Christmas Past, the actresses playing both the Ghost and Belle get sick and have to drop out, leaving Wilma to play the roles. Although we get the usual scenes of Scrooge in school, partying with Fezziwig (Barney again) and ultimately losing Belle, there’s an added subtext here. Wilma is legitimately pissed, and Fred – still focusing on his starring turn – can’t understand why.
Christmas Present is the only scene where the Bedrock Bug doesn’t cause havoc. Brian Cummings voices “Ernie,” the ghost who shows him the party at nephew Ned’s and the tender scene at the Cragit home. I know I made the same crack about the Flintstones celebrating Christmas in a time before Christ last year, but this time it’s really glaring. Barney delivers the old line about Tiny Tim hoping people remember “who made lame beggars walk and blind men see.” It’s a beautiful line, of course, one of Dickens’s best, and a vital reminder of the true reason for the Christmas season. But still, Barney, how can people remember a man who hasn’t been born yet?
Ah well. Sacrifices must be made in the name of great cinema.
Christmas Yet to Come is traditionally hooded and silent, and shows Scrooge the traditional scenes. The big curve ball here doesn’t come until the play is actually over, when Fred goes to congratulate Philo on his performance only to find that Philo got struck down with the Bedrock Bug, and Christmas Future was played by none other than his old pal Dino, putting in the greatest canine performance since Rin-Tin-Tin.
In the end, Pebbles (voiced by Russi Taylor) steals Bamm-Bamm’s “God bless us, everyone” line when he gets stage fright. The play over, though, everybody quickly turns on Fred. Fred apologizes to Wilma and the others for real, and they eventually, begrudgingly forgive him. This is the only spot where the movie falls flat. Although we see Scrooge going through his traditional redemption cycle, there’s never anything that indicates any sort of redemption for Fred. It’s as if Scrooge’s life lessons somehow apply to Fred as well, and work their magic on him. Even if we’re to assume that’s the case, why is the lesson only hitting him now, on the night of the performance, instead of the weeks of rehearsal leading up to the production? It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Speaking of the production, let’s hear it for the Bedrock Community Players, can we? Their stage values are absolutely phenomenal. Somehow they have a full-size reproduction of the city on their stage, along with living dinosaurs and real snow, to say nothing of how they somehow make Fred and the Ghosts turn transparent in full view of the audience. I don’t mind tell you, friends, I’ve done my share of community theatre, and there have been times when we have it rough enough just trying to get the fog machine to work. If we could make our actors intangible, people would be abandoning New Orleans to see our performances in droves.
This is not, by any stretch, one of the all-time great productions of A Christmas Carol, but if you’re a fan of the Flintstones – which I am – it’s a fun little departure from the norm and worth watching each Christmas season.
The first Reel to Reel study, Mutants, Monsters and Madmen, is now available as a $2.99 eBook in the Amazon Kindle store and Smashwords.com bookstore. And you can find links to all of my novels, collections, and short stories, in their assorted print, eBook and audio forms, at the Now Available page!
Scrooge Month Day 9: Michael Caine in THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL (1993)
Director: Brian Henson
Writer: Jerry Juhl, based on A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Cast: Michael Caine, Dave Goelz, Steve Whitmire, Jerry Nelson, Frank Oz, David Rudman, Don Austen, Jessica Fox, Robert Tygner, Steven Mackintosh, Meredith Braun, Robin Weaver
Notes: The early 90s were a rough time for the Jim Henson Studio. After Jim died in 1990, there was a serious doubt in the minds of many that the Muppets could go on. But before his death, Jim had begun working out a deal with the Disney studio to produce more Muppet films, with one of them being an adaptation of A Christmas Carol. After Jim died, his characters were passed on to other performers. This was the first theatrical production for the Muppets after Jim’s passing, and the film is dedicated to him and Muppeteer Richard Hunt, who died in 1991. Although a musical and mostly comedic, this is a pretty faithful adaptation of the original novel, with Michael Caine playing Scrooge, new Muppets created for the three ghosts, and classic Muppets filling most of the other roles. Statler and Waldorf played Jacob and Robert Marley (rimshot), Fozzie Bear became Scrooge’s old boss Fozziwig, Sam the Eagle was Scrooge’s headmaster in school. Most notably, we got Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy as Bob and Emily Cratchit and Kermit’s nephew Robin as Tiny Tim. The film’s stroke of genius, something that gives it an added dimension of fun, is casting the Great Gonzo as Charles Dickens himself, and allowing him to act as narrator, with additional commentary by his oft-time sidekick, Rizzo the Rat.
Thoughts: Not to put too fine a point on it, but this may well be my favorite version of A Christmas Carol. Yeah, there are probably better films, but something about this one works for me. Maybe it’s the amazing music by Paul Williams (who also wrote the songs for the original Muppet Movie). Maybe it’s the silly charm that I still feel when I see humans and Muppets walking around a set together as if there was nothing unusual about that at all. Maybe it’s because this is the movie that, in many people’s hearts, proved that the Muppets could survive after Jim Henson was gone. Whatever the reason, I love The Muppet Christmas Carol like I do few other Christmas movies.
Michael Caine is, of course, an acting legend. He’s done amazing work in dozens of fine films, such as Jaws: The Revenge, which made him the logical choice for Scrooge. His Scrooge starts out as bitter as any, but he has a quality of containment about him. He’s mean and angry, but even in the first scene you get the sense that his greatest degree of hatred is turned inward. He seems like a man ready to explode, and few people present that quality as clearly as a man who is keeping everything inside. When the film ends, when he lets his emotion finally free, it’s not anger but happiness that explodes into the old town. For all his lively parading through the streets, though, nothing serves to illustrate his reformation as well as the quiet moment where he approaches the charity collectors (here played by Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and his assistant Beaker) to give them a generous donation. Bunsen is speechless, but Beaker (always speechless) finds a way to express his gratitude: giving Scrooge the scarf from around his neck. The surprised look on Caine’s face makes you believe it’s truly the first Christmas present he’s ever been given.
This wasn’t Steve Whitmire’s first time playing Kermit the Frog, but it was here that he really had to prove himself. The simple kindness and sincerity of America’s favorite amphibian was perfect for Bob Cratchit… but it wouldn’t necessarily have been all that funny in and of itself. The solution was to surround him with Muppet rats who alternately support him and sell him out when Scrooge bellows. It’s a funny juxtaposition, and when he’s paired off with Miss Piggy (Frank Oz) for the scene in the Cratchit home, her overbearing personality plays off of him in much the same way. Whitmire has had the Kermit job ever since. He acquitted himself well.
At one point, the plan was to use existing Muppets to play the three ghosts, but the filmmakers decided it would detract from the seriousness of the story. Instead, we got three all-new Muppet creations. Christmas Past is a softly floating, ethereal puppet that looks like a bizarre combination of elf and child, glowing and floating. In fact, the performance was filmed in a tank of water to give it the sort of weightless effect they wanted, then greenscreened onto the film. For such a simple effect it’s remarkably effective, giving the ghost an ethereal quality that truly makes it look like it belongs to a different world than our own (or even an alternate version of our own where Muppets coexist with humans). Jessica Fox’s Ghost takes Scrooge on the traditional trip through his past – the joy as he left school and went to Fozziwig’s Christmas party, the heartbreak of losing Belle (Meredith Braun) when she realized he loved his money more than her. The song they sing together is devastating – she sings “The Love is Gone” with fresh sadness, while behind her Michael Caine joins in. Near the end she turns back and, just for a second, you think she’s going to acknowledge the older Scrooge… but she doesn’t. She can’t hear or see him, of course, but the audience sees the agony in his face – the pain of a man forced to relive the greatest mistake of his life.
Christmas Present is presented in a form much in keeping with other versions. He’s huge, of course, but cloaked in the traditional green robe with a holly wreath and a long red mane of hair. There’s a nice tick they give the character, though – being the Ghost of Christmas Present, he has a difficult time focusing on the future or remembering the past, and frequently repeats himself. Throughout his segment, as he and Scrooge get closer and closer to the end of Christmas Day, the Muppet grows visibly older. At the end, he’s practically ancient, and vanishes with the wind. It’s a brilliant effect that gives a nice subtext to the movie. We’ve already seen that the Past is forever, and Present reminds us the now is transient. But what’s coming next, the future… that can still be changed.
Caine sells the present scenes very well. When he realizes he’s the butt of the joke at Fred’s family party, there’s genuine pain on his face. The scene at the Cratchit family house invites a few uncomfortable questions about a world where frogs and pigs are genetically compatible, and are exclusively male and female, respectively. You forget those things when Tiny Tim launches into his song, “Bless Us All.” This part improves on many versions of the story. So often, you just see Scrooge look upon Tim and start to feel bad for him… his transformation is brought on more from pity than anything else. But here, as Tim sings his song you get an impression of just how good and pure a soul he is, and when he starts to cough Scrooge’s change of heart is no longer that of a man who simply feels bad for a sick child, but a man grieving for a world that will be deprived of such light.
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, even in Muppet form, is a sight to behold. Although not quite the skeletal figure he sometimes is, he’s got your standard robe and large, oversized hands that make it look like Michael Caine is being escorted by something wholly inhuman and terrible. This segment goes pretty quickly, rushing from one scene of terror to another before they get to Scrooge’s tombstone. Once again, Caine proves himself, begging for his chance to change in a way that makes you believe in him, believe it’s possible to change, maybe even regain a little of your overall faith in the human race.
Surrounding the whole film is Gonzo as Charles Dickens. His antics with Rizzo provide added energy and comedy in scenes that traditionally aren’t that funny – when Scrooge holes himself up in his mansion before encountering the Marleys, for example. Gonzo is smart enough to know when to keep quiet, though, and in fact the characters make a show of running off and hiding just before Christmas Yet to Come pops in, then make a grand return for the finale. Using him as a narrator also allows this film to layer in much of Dickens’s beautiful prose that rarely makes it to screen, as it’s not dialogue. For that reason alone, that helps this stand as one of the most surprisingly faithful adaptations of the book I’ve ever seen.
I mentioned Paul Williams’s music before, but it’s certainly worthy of its own paragraph. The opening song, “Scrooge,” is somehow gloomy and peppy at the same time – a snappy number about a miserable man. It perfectly encapsulates the character, even giving a hint that there may be goodness within him somewhere (although the Muppets quickly dismiss that notion). Kermit and Robin later sing “One More Sleep ‘Til Christmas,” a lovely, happy song that’s worth singing every Christmas Eve. But the crowning gem is Christmas Present’s number, “It Feels Like Christmas.” There’s something undeniably joyous about the song, something that clutches the heart and the ear so tightly that it bubbles out of me at random moments in the middle of July.
Fair warning, though – the theatrical release of the film and some of the subsequent DVD and Blu-Ray editions left out the duet between Scrooge and Belle, “When Love is Gone.” Disney thought it slowed down the film too much, but when left out it kills the emotional impact of the scene, and furthermore hurts the finale, which contains a counterpoint mixed with “It Feels Like Christmas.” My DVD, fortunately, includes it, and I’d never upgrade to a Blu-Ray that leaves it out.
If you haven’t seen this version of A Christmas Carol before I can only presume that you hate the Muppets, hate Christmas, or hate joy itself. Again, I do not deny that there may be objectively superior adaptations of the book, but I very much doubt anything will ever take its place as my favorite.
The first Reel to Reel study, Mutants, Monsters and Madmen, is now available as a $2.99 eBook in the Amazon Kindle store and Smashwords.com bookstore. And you can find links to all of my novels, collections, and short stories, in their assorted print, eBook and audio forms, at the Now Available page!
Scrooge Month Day 8: Bill Murray in SCROOGED (1988)
Director: Richard Donner
Writers: Mitch Glazer & Michael O’Donoghue, suggested by A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Cast: Bill Murray, Karen Allen, John Forsythe, John Glover, Bobcat Goldthwait, David Johansen, Carol Kane, John Murray, Robert Mitchum, Alfre Woodard, Jamie Farr, Robert Goulet, Buddy Hackett, John Houseman, Lee Majors, Brian Doyle-Murray, Mary Lou Retton, Michael J. Pollard, Wendie Malick, Nicholas Phillips
Notes: This is one of the biggest departures from Dickens we’ve seen yet (and the biggest, I suspect, that we will see in this project, although other movies stray even further from the formula). Bill Murray plays Frank Cross, a disgruntled television network president who is planning a live production of Scrooge on Christmas Eve, loaded with stars like Buddy Hackett as Ebenezer Scrooge and Mary Lou Retton as Tiny Tim. But Frank has lived a rather Scrooge-like life himself, and the Ghosts of Past (Carol Kane), present (David Johansen) and Future are at work once more. We also get Bobcat Goldthwait splitting the Bob Cratchit role with Alfre Woodard (whose young son Calvin, unable to speak for some reason, is our Tiny Tim stand-in), Murray’s younger brother John playing a Fred-like part in the story, and Karen Allen filling in for Scrooge’s lost love Belle in a greatly expanded part than the character has had in any other version of the tale. John Forsythe plays Frank’s late boss, taking the Jacob Marley part.
Thoughts: This weird version of Dickens kicks off with Lee Majors leading an expedition into the North Pole to save Santa from a bunch of terrorists, which he accomplishes by arming the crap out of Santa, Mrs. Claus and all the Elves, all cast against a setting that could have fallen from Tim Burton’s brain. (It doesn’t hurt that we get a Danny Elfman score). It turns out to be one of several horrendous specials planned for the IBC network this year, all being shown to Frank Cross (Bill Murray). As we get to know Frank, we see quickly he’s not exactly Scrooge. Sure, he’s self-centered and greedy and completely lost touch with everything that matters in life – he’s so callous that when a woman has a heart attack and dies after seeing his Scrooge promo he considers it nothing but world-class publicity — but he’s still played by Bill Murray. Such a character cannot be without a sense of humor, and after yesterday’s bitingly joyless performance by George C. Scott, this is already a drastic improvement.
Forsythe’s Lew Hayward is the most gruesome apparition I’ve seen all month. Although he’s talkative and chipper, he looks like a zombie – and not a fresh one either. He’s dried up, desiccated, with rats crawling from a hole in his skull caused by the still-embedded golf ball that killed him. He fills his role neatly, but the sarcastic way Bill Murray deals with him deflates the character right up until Lew gets pissed and dangles him out the window to prove his point. It’s a shame that Murray didn’t have time to call his friends – he knows some people with ghost experience, after all.
Yet another thing that sets Frank Cross’s story apart from Ebenezer Scrooge is that he’s given a chance to return to his life after each ghostly encounter. His meeting with Lew Hayward puts him in touch with Claire Phillips – played to charming perfection by Karen Allen. Claire, it seems, is the one that got away, the love of Frank’s life, the girl who he left behind when he got big. Unlike Scrooge, Frank has a second chance – Claire is still single and she’s clearly happy to see him again. Of course, it wouldn’t be much of a movie if he didn’t come close to screwing it up all over again.
David Johansen is our Ghost of Christmas Past – here depicted as a rough New York cab driver whose taxi takes Frank back in time to relive childhood Christmases where his father (Brian Doyle-Murray) gave him meat and less distant years when things with Claire were pretty good… until they went bad. Johansen is a nice character – funny and sarcastic at the same time, even with his harsh edge. Despite that, though, despite heaping verbal (and even a little physical) abuse on Frank, you never lose your faith that his ultimate goal is for Frank’s ultimate good.
In Carol Kane, we get a Christmas Present that looks like a tooth fairy and has the clear-headedness of a toddler. She also has no problem with smacking Frank around when he needs it, which he frequently does. Her visits with Frank’s brother and Alfre Woodard’s family do more than the traditional Christmas Present visits, where Scrooge usually sees what he’s missing out on and begins to feel empathy for Tiny Tim. Here we also see how good everyone else is in comparison to him—Woodard goes behind Frank’s back and sends his brother a VCR for Christmas rather than the proscribed towel he’s handing out to everyone else. This is also where the movie takes a sharp turn into melancholy when we encounter a homeless man (Michael J. Pollard) Frank had earlier met at Claire’s soup kitchen, now frozen to death. It’s a perhaps the saddest moment in the film, and it gives Frank just the right blow to turn the chink forming in his armor into a full-on crack. It’s just such a sad, hopeless, pathetic sight you can’t help but be affected, and Murray’s enraged screaming at Pollard’s frozen corpse is the clearest indication yet he has a conscience in there somewhere. He may be yelling at Herman for being stupid, but he really hates himself for not doing anything to save the man when he had the chance.
The puppet they use for Christmas Future here is the scariest damn version of the character yet, making his first appearance on a wall of television monitors and reaching out of it for Murray just before Bobcat Goldthwait bursts in with his shotgun. (More on that shortly.) The future he shows Frank is even bleaker than Scrooge’s usual future. Claire isn’t just alone, she’s embraced Frank’s gospel of greed. The non-talking Calvin (Nicholas Phillips) isn’t dead, but he’s been committed to a sanitarium. Brother James comes off the best in the future – he and his wife (Wendie Malick) are the only two people who show up to watch Frank’s cremation, except for Frank himself… and he, naturally, winds up in the coffin.
Although Bobcat Goldthwait’s Eliot Loudermilk is filling the Bob Cratchit archetype, a Cratchit he’s not. He has good intentions, but after Frank fires him in the opening scenes of the movie, he goes nuts. He shows up later toting a shotgun, planning to get his revenge. Fortunately for him, Frank has been redeemed by that point and not only gives him his job back, but recruits him as his sidekick in the glorious finale, in which he takes over the studio at gunpoint and shows off his newly-discovered Christmas spirit to the world.
The finale, in fact, is why I love this movie so much. Not to say the rest of it isn’t entertaining, but if it weren’t for the ending, when Bill Murray stands in front of the cameras and expresses his joyful spirit to the whole world (even winning back Claire) it may not stick with you so clearly. The happiness and sincerity in that final sequence is maybe the most believable such redemption I’ve ever seen a Scrooge undergo. He shouts at the camera, he pleads with the audience for everybody to embrace the feeling that’s overtaking him, and Bill Murray sells every inch of it. And if you don’t laugh when he starts talking to the audience in the movie theater, compelling them to sing along, I don’t know if I want to know you. Scrooged may be the least Dickensian of the films we’ve watched, but it’s easily one of my favorites.
The first Reel to Reel study, Mutants, Monsters and Madmen, is now available as a $2.99 eBook in the Amazon Kindle store and Smashwords.com bookstore. And you can find links to all of my novels, collections, and short stories, in their assorted print, eBook and audio forms, at the Now Available page!
Scrooge Month Day 7: George C. Scott in A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1984)
Director: Clive Donner
Writer: Roger O. Hirson, based on the novel by Charles Dickens
Cast: George C. Scott, Frank Finlay, Angela Pleasance, Edward Woodward, Michael Carter, David Warner, Susannah York, Anthony Walters, Roger Rees, Lucy Gutteridge, Timothy Bateson, Nigel Davenport, Joanne Whalley, Kieron Hughes
Notes: This production of A Christmas Carol was a made-for-TV movie in the United States, aired on CBS, and netted George C. Scott an Emmy nomination for best lead actor in a miniseries or special. It was good enough to get a theatrical release in Great Britain. Scott himself, interestingly enough, owned the rights to the film, and it went into syndication for many years, gaining a large following. It wasn’t released on VHS until 1995, however, with a DVD release following in 1999. The film is still popular today, and is often seen on AMC at this time of year (although a few years ago, the Hallmark Channel managed to work it in between installments of their 60-day marathon of different original movies in which former sitcom stars or models play the children of Santa Claus attempting to find true love in the modern world).
Thoughts: From the first frame of the film, this edition of A Christmas Carol takes a markedly different tone than most. It opens up with Roger Rees’s narrator reciting the first line of the novel: “Marley was dead to begin with…” The scene is a hearse carting old Jacob’s coffin through the streets of London, and you get this terrible, all-pervading chill that makes you feel like you’re about to get the hell scared out of you.
Then the mood whiplash hits you, with a cheery fanfare and a burst of music that shows people walking around the city, gleefully wishing one another Merry Christmas and celebrating with music and packages and a guy playing a trombone which – I know from experience – will freeze right to your lips on a day like that if you’re not careful. It’s a great contrast to Scrooge’s counting house, where Scrooge (George C. Scott) is berating Bob Cratchit (David Warner) for his picky request of a lump of coal to keep himself from freezing to death. Ah, we’re in familiar Dickensian territory now. When Roger Rees – now playing Fred – walks into the office, we’re getting right into the most well-known lines in Dickens’s remarkable catalogue.
Scott takes a different tack with Scrooge than many of his predecessors. While many of them portray the character as an incurable grump, taking no joy at anything, Scott’s Scrooge is not above a good laugh in the face of his ever-so-foolish nephew. In this opening sequence, the filmmakers start adding to the Dickens story. In an early scene, for example, Scrooge encounters Tiny Tim (Anthony Walters) waiting outside for his father. It serves no real purpose other than to show Scrooge being a jerk even to a little crippled boy. Traditionally, Scrooge (and the audience) doesn’t usually see Tim until Christmas Present pops over to the Cratchit house. This, plus a few other minutes of Scrooge making deals, all go just to show him as an even nastier, more miserly creature than usual. Scrooge is usually a pathetic, greedy man. This is the first version of the story I’ve seen in which he actually seems to exude a little evil in his demeanor.
I really like Frank Finlay’s design as the ghost of Jacob Marley. We get the traditional brushed iron moneyboxes blending nicely into the iron chains, all of which match his clothes and skin and cold, dead eyes perfectly. The chains cross in front of him, meeting in an enormous lock that gives the whole thing a look of being intentional, being planned. A lot of Marleys have the chains just draped on them. This is a Marley for whom the chains were specifically forged.
Angela Pleasance’s Ghost of Christmas Past has a unique look as well. She carries her “cap” – the light of truth – which often accompanies one of the candle-like versions of the character. She’s not particularly waxen in her appearance, though. With her white-blond hair, loose robes and sprig of greenery clutched in her hands, she has a sort of elfin appearance, like she belongs in a version of a Tolkien story. She gives more attention to Scrooge’s father than most versions do as well. Usually, all we hear of Scrooge Senior is that he’s “kinder than he used to be.” This time, though, Fan (Joanne Whalley) brings him to a father who coldly insists a three-day reunion is sufficient and Scrooge is to be sent straight to Fezziwig’s to begin his apprenticeship. This time around, it’s not Fan’s death that hardens Scrooge’s heart. It’s quite clearly the tender ministrations of his father. It just gets worse as he sees himself leaving his beloved Belle (Lucy Gutteridge), then flashing to a later Christmas in which she is married with children and – worst of all – pitying poor, lonely Scrooge. When he uses Christmas Past’s own “cap” to smother her away, it’s almost a blessing.
Edward Woodward’s Christmas Present is about as traditional as it gets – an enormous mountain of a man draped in his green robe and holly wreath around his head. He has an energy that’s practically bubbling out, giggling in Scrooge’s face, but like much of this movie, his laugh is cold. It’s in his scene that I’m really starting to feel what sets this version apart from most others. Usually, the point of A Christmas Carol is that Scrooge has cut himself off from a warm world and he needs to find a way to let it back in. The impression George C. Scott’s version gives is that he lives in a world with very little pity, and he must work to earn back the comfort of the rest of the human race.
This segment, again, adds to the story. Bob Cratchit comes home to tell his eldest son Peter (Kieron Hughes) that Scrooge’s nephew, Fred, has offered him a job. Scrooge is convinced Fred is doing it just to spite him, but his veneer is cracking – when Bob says the blessing over their Christmas Eve dinner, Scrooge is unable to resist whispering an “Amen” along with the family, then promptly denies it to Christmas Present. When they hit the famous bit where Christmas Present throws Scrooge’s own words back at him – “decrease the surplus population” and all that – he does so not with the ironic amusement of most performers, but with a bitter anger. Once we get to the reveal of Ignorance and Want beneath his robes, it just seems like more of the same from him.
Scrooge, in fact, does his best to remain stoic, even in the Christmas Future segment while he watches Bob Cratchit discussing Tiny Tim’s death. While David Warner breaks down discussing his dead child, displaying depths of compassion not seen since his turn as Sark in TRON, George C. Scott just stands off to the side offering commentary. He’s seen it all, he needs to go. He has a sadness in his voice, but he’s trying to bottle it right up until the spirit shows him his own grave.
If this version of A Christmas Carol has a failing, it’s in its nihilism. This is a bitter London full of bitter people. Scrooge comes across not as the outcast he’s made himself, but as another cold man who reluctantly, in the end, decides to try to make his way into the minority of happy people. Sadly, this is probably a bit more realistic a depiction of the time period than most other versions of the story. Even if that’s true, though, it gives this film a powerful strike against it: we never feel like this is a Scrooge that has earned his redemption. Scott’s performance is good, but the world he inhabits feels a bit off, and for that if no other reason, this just isn’t one of my preferred versions of the Dickens classic.
The first Reel to Reel study, Mutants, Monsters and Madmen, is now available as a $2.99 eBook in the Amazon Kindle store and Smashwords.com bookstore. And you can find links to all of my novels, collections, and short stories, in their assorted print, eBook and audio forms, at the Now Available page!
Scrooge Month Day 6: Scrooge McDuck in MICKEY’S CHRISTMAS CAROL (1983)
Director: Burny Mattinson
Writers: Burny Mattinson, Tony Marino, Ed Gombert, Don Griffith, Alan Young, Alan Dinehart, based on the novel A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Cast: Alan Young, Wayne Allwine, Hal Smith, Will Ryan, Eddie Carroll, Patricia Parris, Dick Billingsley, Clarence Nash
Notes: Paired with a re-release of the 1977 film The Rescuers, Mickey’s Christmas Carol is significant in the annals of Disney animation for several reasons. It was the first theatrical short starring Mickey Mouse in 30 years; it was the final time Donald Duck’s original voice actor, Clarence Nash, would voice the character; and it was the first time Alan Young would voice Donald’s Uncle Scrooge, a role he has continued with through the classic DuckTales TV show and every other depiction of the character right through the present day. Despite its short length, the film is remarkably faithful to the Dickens novel, keeping most of the important scenes and characters, although racing through them in the 26-minute running time. The Disney characters who take part in this adaptation include Scrooge McDuck (Young) as Ebenezer Scrooge, Mickey Mouse (Wayne Allwine) as Bob Cratchit, Donald Duck (Nash) as Scrooge’s nephew Fred, Goofy (Hal Smith) as Jacob Marley, Jiminy Cricket (Eddie Carroll) as the Ghost of Christmas Past, Willie the Giant (Will Ryan) as the Ghost of Christmas Present, and Black Pete (Ryan again) as one of the few versions of Christmas Yet to Come to actually have lines. Other minor characters and background extras come from various Disney shorts and films starring animals, particularly The Wind in the Willows and Robin Hood, which you may remember I talked about here once before.
Thoughts: This is the shortest version of A Christmas Carol I’ve talked about yet, and is probably the shortest I’ll discuss all month, but it’s also one of my favorites. Part of that can no doubt be chalked up to nostalgia – I was six years old when this cartoon was released, and I think I saw it in the theater, but I honestly can’t say for sure. Regardless, I am sure this was the first version of the story I remember in any detail, and as such it holds a special place in my heart. That said, it’s worth talking about even without the nostalgia factor because – again, despite its short running time – it’s really good.
First of all: Alan Young. I’m not sure how many people are aware that Uncle Scrooge has the voice of Wilbur from TV’s Mr. Ed, and I’m not sure how many would care if they did, because his work with this character is by far a more enduring legacy. Scrooge McDuck is a character who has to be firm and grumpy, but with a good heart at the core. In truth, from the outset he was a (slightly) milder version of the Dickens character Carl Barks named him after. Young’s voice performance is flawless.
The “casting” all around is good. Mickey Mouse – so long portrayed as a sweet, well-meaning everyman — is the natural choice for Bob Cratchit. Jiminy Cricket is Pinocchio’s conscience, and as such is the logical choice for Christmas Past. Willie and Pete, both nominal “villains” in their usual Disney performances, fit their roles well, with the man-child Willie making an even larger version of Christmas Present than we usually see and Pete taking real delight in his nasty work. The only one that doesn’t really seem to fit is Goofy as Jacob Marley – a character full of regret. Even if Goofy had anything to regret (he doesn’t – the character is far too innocent for that), he’s not self-aware enough to realize it. I imagine he was given the part simply because they felt the need to get all of Disney’s top three characters into the cartoon somewhere and they just couldn’t think of any other way to include him.
The only major character omitted from this version of the story is Scrooge’s sister, Fan. Considering it was billed as a Mickey Mouse cartoon, that’s understandable – kids may be able to accept ghosts and hellfire and redemption, but I doubt any parent wanted to have a discussion with their children about the potential of a mother dying in childbirth. Besides, there’s a long precedent in Disney cartoons of obvious orphans whose parents are never referenced (Donald and Mickey’s nephews and Donald himself being the prime examples).
Scrooge’s reformation is a bit more subtle in this film, although we do see the stages. After Christmas Past shows Scrooge the scene where he breaks the heart of Isabelle (Donald’s girlfriend Daisy, which must have been kind of awkward on the set), Scrooge berates himself for being foolish. A few seconds later, though, as Christmas Present preaches generosity, Scrooge stubbornly argues that he has no reason to be generous to others, as no one has ever shown such kindness to him. In response, we go to the Cratchit house, where Tiny Tim himself encourages his family to thank Mr. Scrooge. That’s all Scrooge gets from Christmas Present, though, as he’s left standing between a pair of giant footprints before a cloud of cigar smoke whisks him to the cemetery. He’s scared now, and you can feel it, but instead of asking about himself, he inquires as to Tim’s welfare. It’s a good moment, and it’s heartbreaking a moment later when we see Mickey Mouse, in tears, laying a crutch on a tombstone. If that isn’t enough to give kids watching permanent scarring, Christmas Future whips off his hood, lights a match on Scrooge’s tombstone, and kicks him into the open grave, where fire being blazing from the coffin and reaches for Scrooge just before he’s whisked home for the joyful finale.
It is still a Disney cartoon, and as such has to work in some comedy amidst the dark subject matter. The balance is good, and never at the expense of character, whether we’re looking at a verbal gag, a bit of ironic wording, or a quick sight gag. The moment where Scrooge tells Fred he’s coming to Christmas dinner after all, Fred and the horse look each other in the eye and Nash gives the line reading of his career: a simple “Well I’ll be doggone” that never fails to get a laugh out of me.
I do so love this cartoon, and not just because I got to watch it and write the whole article in less than a half-hour. It’s a wonderful rendition of Dickens’s story, even in its condensed form, and it just came out on a 30th anniversary edition Blu-Ray and DVD, along with several other classic Disney Christmas shorts, and one brand new one. If you don’t already own it, get it now.
The first Reel to Reel study, Mutants, Monsters and Madmen, is now available as a $2.99 eBook in the Amazon Kindle store and Smashwords.com bookstore. And you can find links to all of my novels, collections, and short stories, in their assorted print, eBook and audio forms, at the Now Available page!
Scrooge Month Day 5: Albert Finney in SCROOGE (1970)
Director: Ronald Neame
Writer: Leslie Bricusse, based on A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Cast: Albert Finney, Edith Evans, Kenneth More, Laurence Naismith, Susanne Neve, Michael Medwin, David Collings, Derek Francis, Roy Kinnear, Richard Beaumont, Alec Guinness, Paddy Stone
Notes: This version of Scrooge is a musical extravaganza that got four Academy Award nominations, including best original song and best score. Albert Finney’s Ebenezer Scrooge scored the Golden Globe award for best actor in a motion picture, musical or comedy. For the most part, this version of the story is quite faithful to Dickens, with a few small additions at the end that really make its mark.
Thoughts: To many people, the battle for the ultimate version of A Christmas Carol comes down to the Alastair Sim version we discussed a few days ago and this musical version. It’s hard to argue. There have been dozens, maybe hundreds of different incarnations of the story since then, but these two seem to be the purest and most entertaining renditions of the story ever put to film.
Credit for the longevity of this version, I think, is to be shared between Albert Finney – for a phenomenal performance as Scrooge – and Leslie Bricusse, who wrote both the screenplay and the music for this film. Scrooge’s intonation of “I Hate People” is as perfect a summation of the miserable wretch he is that I’ve ever seen. He’s cold, he’s bitter, and he’s angry at the world. Such a person is, of course, both miserable and terribly comfortable in his misery. Going back to the Sim version, the Scrooge who was afraid of change, Finney’s Scrooge comes off as a man who is also very set in his ways, and doesn’t care if that comfortable place is one of loneliness and pain.
Sir Alec Guinness steps in as Marley’s ghost this time around, and his interpretation is… unique. Guinness has this slow, deliberate walk, almost like he’s moving through water. If you really want to try to analyze it, I suppose you could intuit that ghosts have less substance than matter in the world of the living, and therefore ordinary matter has a degree of resistance that has an unexpected impact on their ability to move. Of course, anyone who would go to such lengths to rationalize such a relatively short scene in the movie would be kind of crazy, so I’m not going to try to do such a thing. Regardless, Guinness’s odd motion is creepy, even more so when he begins floating, bellowing his warning to Scrooge and bound to the Earth only by one of this oh-so-heavy chains.
Like Marley, Edith Evans as Christmas Past is unique. The filmmakers take advantage of Dickens’s non-description to whip up a character that looks, talks and dresses like the sort of uptight grandmother you see in movies where kids have to teach the grown-ups to lighten up, okay? There’s a bit of irony there – her task, after all, is to teach that same lesson to Scrooge. And what’s more, he starts learning that lesson right away. As soon as he sees himself sitting alone in his schoolhouse while his classmates rush about and celebrate Christmas, he expresses regret that he didn’t join them. This version, too, implies that Scrooge’s sister (“Fran” instead of the traditional “Fan”) died giving birth to young Fred, and as I’ve already discussed why I think that works for the character in a previous article, I won’t belabor the point.
This section also includes one of the peppiest musical numbers in the film – Laurence Naismith and Suzanne Neve as Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig, cheerfully extolling the virtues of “December the 25th” as a rhythmless Scrooge looks on, unable to dance. It’s a rather old-fashioned tune, one that feels like it could have spilled right out of the golden age of the Broadway musical, and I actually think it’s quite a shame it doesn’t get more play when people are lining up their traditional Christmas song lists.
Kenneth More’s Christmas Present is much more traditional – green robe, holly wreath around his head, sitting atop a mountain of food and riches, as he always makes his appearance. His powerful anthem, “I Like Life,” is a perfect counterpoint for Scrooge’s earlier “I Hate People.” At first, it feels like he’s berating Scrooge, calling the miser’s philosophy “self-pitying drivel.” As the song progresses, though, we get to the root of it – he’s putting the skinflint through a sort of spiritual boot camp, shaking down all his pretenses so that he can be rebuilt into a man who truly does enjoy the pleasures of life he’s denied himself for such a long time. Many versions of this story make the moment when Christmas Present whisks Scrooge out the window into the air into a scene of terror, but not here. By this point, Scrooge is on-board, singing along and joyously joining in on their flight above London… right until they crash into the snow outside Bob Cratchit’s house.
Christmas Future is where this version of the film really begins taking liberties, and in fact, I like the ones that they take. Rather than starting out with people talking about the death of a lonely man and Scrooge not realizing they’re talking about him, this version starts with people outside of Scrooge’s counting house, cheering for him, joyfully talking about the “wonderful thing” Scrooge has done for them. Scrooge is moved and swept away with emotion, believing himself already redeemed, and doesn’t even notice when his own casket is carried out of the counting house. The irony of the scene is made even worse as the people start singing the gleeful tune “Thank You Very Much” (the song nominated for an Oscar). He marches along, dancing with people, completely oblivious to the fact that they’re celebrating his corpse. It’s happy and chilling all at the same time.
Once we make it to the cemetery, though, things get really freaky, with Christmas Yet To Come (here a sort of fossilized corpse) shoving Scrooge into his own grave and allowing him to plunge all the way to Hell! Scrooge’s final destination if he doesn’t change is always clear in this story, but this is the first one I know of that goes far enough to actually drop him into the pit, where he wakes up in a coffin-shaped hole and is told by Marley he’s been bound to be Lucifer’s bookkeeper. Director Ronald Neame didn’t bother with subtlety here.
“I’ll Begin Again,” Scrooge’s song when he wakes up and realizes he’s not dead after all, is a fantastic number. There’s a hope, a glee, and a sincerity inherent in his words that sells every moment. When we watch this old man dancing through a drafty old mansion covered in cobwebs, you feel every bit of the change he’s experienced. Once he sends the urchin off to buy the turkey and he chirps, “I think I’m going to like children,” even the stoniest heart will have come on-board with Scrooge’s reformation.
This is one of the truly classic renditions of A Christmas Carol, one of the best ever put to film, and I think I’d have that opinion even without the powerful tweaks we’re given in the Christmas Yet to Come segment. Beautiful music and a magnificent Scrooge combine to give us a film one really should watch every year. And let’s not forget the most important lesson of all: Alec Guinness really knows how to play a ghost, doesn’t he?
The first Reel to Reel study, Mutants, Monsters and Madmen, is now available as a $2.99 eBook in the Amazon Kindle store and Smashwords.com bookstore. And you can find links to all of my novels, collections, and short stories, in their assorted print, eBook and audio forms, at the Now Available page!
Scrooge Month Day 4: Quincy Magoo in MR. MAGOO’S CHRISTMAS CAROL (1962)
Director: Abe Levitow
Writer: Barbara Chain, based on A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Cast: Jim Backus, Morey Amsterdam, Jack Cassidy, Royal Dano, Paul Frees, Joan Gardener, John Hart, Jane Kean, Marie Matthews, Laura Olsher, Les Tremayne
Note: Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol is credited as being the first ever animated Christmas special, beating Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer by two years. The special brought back Quincy Magoo, star of a series of theatrical shorts from the 40s and 50s, and led him into his own television series in 1964. In the framing device we learn that we’re actually watching a musical Broadway production of A Christmas Carol, one that evidently drops all references to Scrooge’s family, switches the order of Christmas Past and Christmas Present for some reason, and makes occasional references to Scrooge’s (Magoo’s) poor eyesight.
Thoughts: After three days of extremely traditional renditions of A Christmas Carol, I’m glad to be able to dip my toes into this less serious version. The opening scene, where Magoo – voiced, as always, by Jim Backus — sings about how happy he is to be returning to Broadway, sets the stage well. It’s silly, the music is catchy, and it lets you know that you’re watching a play-within-a-TV special (a conceit the Flintstones would borrow 30 years later).
Once that opening scene is done away with, though, we go into a version of the Dickens classic that is clearly adapted, but still very recognizable. There aren’t a bunch of side jokes about the theatrical production, just a few “act breaks” where we see the curtain closing. There’s no attempt to explain the translucent Marley (voiced by Royal Dano) or how such a thing would be accomplished on a live stage, to say nothing of the times when the time-traveling Scrooge appears on stage with his younger self, both of them clearly played by Magoo. The gags about Magoo’s lousy vision, a staple of most of his cartoons, are reduced to a minimum. And although much of the book is dismissed in the name of expediency, the stuff that remains is often verbatim Dickens, albeit performed by the cast of the cartoon. Backus isn’t really playing Scrooge here, he’s playing Mr. Magoo as Mr. Magoo, reading the lines of Ebenezer Scrooge, but not making a huge effort to portray a different character than he usually does in the animated series.
The decision to jump straight to Christmas Present (Les Tremayne) is baffling. Why in the world would you do the present before the past? It doesn’t particularly hurt the abbreviated version of the story, but it doesn’t help it either. The design of the character is slightly problematic as well – a red robe and long, white whiskers. No doubt most small children who watch this would confuse the character with Santa Claus. This may be deliberate, I suppose – with his compassion for Tiny Tim and the rest of the downtrodden impacted by Scrooge, Christmas Present is certainly the most Santa-like of the Spirits. Still, he’s not Santa Claus, and it doesn’t serve the special to pretend he is.
Christmas Past looks a bit better, more of the “living candle” depiction of the character that we’ve seen in some of the other renditions of the story. Of the three ghosts, Past is the one that has the most variance in his/her/its different incarnations in the media, with Dickens having a pretty vague description in the first place. That said, I find it interesting that a few versions have become common – the Candle and the Angel in particular.
This is going to sound strange, but the highlight of the special to me is actually the musical number that accompanies the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come segment. In many versions of the story, we see a gathering of people gloating over selling the deceased Scrooge’s possessions (the fact that the deceased in question is Scrooge is usually obvious to the audience, but Scrooge himself refuses to admit it yet). In this version, we get a snappy, creepy little song that feels like it should be in a Halloween special. And yes, I love that. Ghost stories, as you may know, used to be more traditionally associated with Christmas than Halloween; the reversal really only happened in the 20th century. I’m old school in this way. I love the juxtaposition of the frightening ghost story with the joy of Christmas as a way to really hammer home the lesson that Scrooge needs to learn. Dickens did it right, and the makers of this special did him right in this department.
This is a first in many ways – the first animated Christmas special, the first time we saw another fictional character “play” Scrooge, and as such it deserves a proud place in the annals of Christmas TV. And it’s a good special, don’t get me wrong. But it’s not even close to my favorite.
The first Reel to Reel study, Mutants, Monsters and Madmen, is now available as a $2.99 eBook in the Amazon Kindle store and Smashwords.com bookstore. And you can find links to all of my novels, collections, and short stories, in their assorted print, eBook and audio forms, at the Now Available page!
Scrooge Month Day 3: Fredric March in A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1954)
Director: Ralph Levy
Writer: Maxwell Anderson, based on the novel by Charles Dickens
Cast: Fredric March, Basil Rathbone, Bob Sweeney, Christopher Cook, Sally Fraser, Ray Middleton, Dick Elliott, Bonnie Franklin
Notes: This 48-minute version of A Christmas Carol was produced as an episode of the CBS variety show Shower of Stars. The network was heavy on dramas at the time and created this more lighthearted musical/variety show as a way to open up their own programming to different audiences. Aside from having the magnificent Basil Rathbone as Marley’s ghost, this special also features an early TV appearance from future sitcom star Bonnie Franklin as one of the Cratchit children. This particular episode was nominated for four Emmy awards, including best original music composed for TV to Bernard Hermann and Best Actor in a single performance for Fredric March as Scrooge. It won the Emmy for best art direction of a filmed show. Rathbone would later go on to play Scrooge himself in the film The Stingiest Man in Town (1956, not to be confused with the Rankin and Bass adaptation of the same name), which I somehow don’t have a copy of on DVD. Maybe some other year, guys.
Thoughts: When I heard this was a musical version, my mind automatically went to the idea of some heavily produced Broadway-style extravaganza. As it turned out, that’s not what we got at all. Instead, the music is very traditional in nature, performed in a chorale style that wouldn’t seem out of place in a Church. Much of it is produced by a group of carolers who wander in between scenes with Scrooge and company, another song turning up at Fezziwig’s party during the Christmas Past segment. Tiny Tim gets a solo in the Cratchit house, but it’s really quite subdued, sweet, and sad.
The only song that really feels like most musicals is Christmas Present’s, which he sings the instant he meets Scrooge, with the film going so far into musically-inspired lunacy that he pulls a long garland from Scrooge’s robe, makes the hands of a clock wiggle around, and shuts some doors telekinetically. But it’s just the one scene that takes this tactic. The rest of the film is more of a diegetic musical than a traditional one. Later musical versions of the story wouldn’t bother with attempts to explain where the music came from.
In an interesting Wizard of Oz-style twist, the two more talkative ghosts are played by actors doing double-duty as one of the characters significant to that segment of Scrooge’s life. Sally Fraser plays both his lost love Belle and the Ghost of Christmas Past, while Ray Middleton bounds in as the bombastic nephew Fred and returns as the thunderous Ghost of Christmas Future. It’s an unusual conceit, and one the film carries very well. Fraser is lovely as both the Ghost and as Belle, carrying that sort of classic beauty and charm actresses of the 40s all seemed to have. (Yes, I know this was 1954. She still had the charm of an actress of the 40s, and that alone makes it clear why March’s Scrooge grew so infatuated with her.) Her performance, however, is a bit stiff. The same cannot be said for Middleton’s Christmas Present, who appears in the midst of a song and practically explodes cheer all over Scrooge.
All of these songs, of course, come at the expense of a little story. The Fezziwig party is pretty much the only part of Scrooge’s past we get to see, with Belle dumping his greedy ass right after they perform a duet about being with your loved one at Christmas. It’s a bit disconcerting, actually, without the usual lapse of many years during which we presume he got colder and crueler. In the Christmas Present sequence, the traditional guessing game — which makes Scrooge realize just how poorly everybody thinks about him — is moved from Fred’s home to the Cratchit house, cutting out Fred’s scene. It comes at the expense of character. The Bob Cratchit who defends his stingy employer to his wife seems unlikely to make the same man the object of ridicule, even if there’s no real malice behind it (Fred, it should be pointed out, usually doesn’t mean it to be cruel.) Even Christmas future skips most of the prelude stuff and jumps right to the cemetery, where Scrooge sees his own tombstone, then Tim’s, then breaks down crying until he pops into his bed. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come gets a sort of name drop from Ray Middleton, but otherwise is absent.
Rathbone’s Jacob Marley is fantastic. He’s not loud and terrifying, not a sort of jump-in-your-face apparition as some of them are. Instead, his version is rather quiet and matter-of-fact, staring at Scrooge as if he can barely see him. Somehow it’s even more disquieting that way than if he simply chose to scream at us all and warn Scrooge he’s going to Hell, damn it, if he doesn’t straighten up and fly right.
March is a solid Scrooge. He pulls off the transition from angry to joyful mostly convincingly, although at the end, when he shows up at the Cratchit house, he’s got a bit of the crazy eyes going on, particularly in the closing musical number, where the camera focuses on him fidgeting for two minutes instead of showing absolutely anything else. Before that there’s a nice bit where he leans on Bob Cratchit just a little, but in the interest of making him lighten up. It’s a fun way to show just how profound the change in Scrooge is, allowing him to take a tool from his Old Self and put it to use as his New Self.
I like this version. It’s not great, but it’s quick and has some very good music (Hermann deserved that Emmy). If you happen across it in your holiday viewing this year, it’s well worth watching.
The first Reel to Reel study, Mutants, Monsters and Madmen, is now available as a $2.99 eBook in the Amazon Kindle store and Smashwords.com bookstore. And you can find links to all of my novels, collections, and short stories, in their assorted print, eBook and audio forms, at the Now Available page!
Scrooge Month Day 2: Alastair Sim in A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1951)
Director: Brian Desmond-Hurst
Writer: Noel Langley, based on the novel by Charles Dickens
Cast: Alastair Sim, Mervyn Jones, Kathleen Harrison, Hermione Braddeley, Michael Hordern, Rona Anderson, Francis de Wolff, Carol Marsh, Brian Worth, Michael Dolan, Glyn Dearman, Roddy Hughes, C. Konarski, Peter Bull
Notes: This well-known version of the story was released in the UK as Scrooge. Although originally slated to have its US premiere at Radio City Music Hall, it was rejected for being “too grim.” Evidently, the Radio City folks didn’t know what they were getting into when they booked the most well-known Christmas ghost story of all time. The movie wound up having its premiere at a different theater, on Halloween night. A colorized version was released in 1989, as part of Ted Turner’s ongoing pact with Satan.
Thoughts: Another fairly straightforward production of A Christmas Carol today, friends, although we’re getting into some of the most well-remembered versions now. The Alastair Sim Scrooge has been considered a classic for sixty years, and with good reason. His depiction of the character is remarkable, and the rest of the cast is quite impressive as well. Glyn Dearman’s Tiny Tim, for instance, is much more convincing than the one we saw in the Seymour Hicks film, whose perfect hair and chipper tone made it somewhat difficult to believe we were looking at a child on death’s door. Michael Hordern as Marley is notable as well – he has this distant, forlorn keening in his voice that makes it really easy to accept he’s spent the last seven years suffering torment for the sins of his life… and that he knows he has an eternity more to look forward to.
This version ratchets up the spooky very well, starting with Marley. He shows Scrooge visions of other tormented souls, a nice shot of toiling, despairing ghosts imposed over Alastair Sim that really has a haunting quality to it. No wonder Radio City thought this movie might freak people out.
This time around get see a story that really plays up Scrooge’s relationship to his sister, Fan (Carol Marsh). I’ve always liked when a version of this story gives her the proper respect. Early on we see her talking to Scrooge about their father, and how he’s kinder now than he used to be; Scrooge later comments how much of Fan he sees in his nephew, Fred. In this production Fan dies giving birth to her son, something that wasn’t stated in the Dickens book, but that has passed into many of the versions of the story since then. Fan even calls Scrooge to her deathbed, but he storms out in a rage when he hears the baby cry. He never hears Fan’s last words, in which she begs him to take care for Fred, until Christmas Past shows the moment to him, and Old Scrooge breaks down in tears, begging for forgiveness.
The reason this works for me is purely character-focused. Fan was a ray of light in what was obviously a very gloomy childhood, and her death is one of the clearest events that could have caused Scrooge’s slide away from the good young man he was into the cold old man he became. What’s more, by connecting her death to Fred’s birth, we’ve also got a rock-solid reason for Scrooge’s distance from his only remaining family: not only does he blame Fred for the death of his beloved sister, but seeing so much of her in the young man he becomes is no doubt painful for Scrooge. Every minute he looks at Fred, he’s reminded of his beloved sister’s death. Hell, when viewed through that prism, who could blame him for not wanting to spend Christmas with Fred’s family?
This version spends more time with Christmas Past than most others, even taking us to Marley’s deathbed, at which point Scrooge has already become a miserable old miser. Before Marley dies, though, he whispers to Scrooge that they were “wrong” – he’s realized his mistake before he dies, but too late to do anything about it. This focus on the past really works well, showing Scrooge his own fall so that he can fully understand the mistakes he made in his life. Most versions of the story pluck out different highlights that force the viewer to merely assume that Scrooge turned into a bigger jerk in-between each scene we actually get to see. Here, the changes are apparent. When Christmas Present (Francis de Wolff) finally shows up, Scrooge already realizes he’s made terrible choices in his life. The Present serves mostly to show him that those decisions go beyond ruining himself, and indeed carry a heavy cost for those around him as well.
The way Sim plays his interaction with Christmas Yet to Come is pretty unique. He begs the Spirit to leave him be, not because he’s unwilling to change, but because he’s “too old to change.” What’s more the way he says it sounds sincere, not like someone just making an excuse. I don’t know that I’ve seen any other versions of A Christmas Carol that put this particular spin on Scrooge (although now that I’ve said that I’ll probably find exactly that thing next Thursday or something). Taking this approach changes the story just a little. When you combine it with the earlier scenes with Fan, we now see Ebenezer Scrooge as a man craving stability. Why did he run before his sister died? Why did he drive away Alice (changed from “Belle” for some reason) before they could be married? Why, even now, does he cling to his horrible ways, even after he has come to accept how horrible they are? Because anything else would require something different, and that’s something Scrooge is unequipped to deal with. With just a few lines, screenwriter Noel Langley gave Dickens’s story a much different subtext than we usually get.
In the end, this all leads to a beautiful transformation: Scrooge sits in his counting house, berating himself because he doesn’t deserve such happiness, but laughing all the time because, with the goodness he’s managed to find within himself, he simply can’t help it. This version perfectly encapsulates the real meaning of Dickens’s work: it is, first and foremost, a story of redemption, which is tailor-made for Christmas.
This is, simply stated, one of the real classic versions of A Christmas Carol, and with good reason. It’s a great cast with a take on the characters that’s just slightly off-center, while still being fully respectful of the story Charles Dickens told back in 1843. That’s not easy to pull off, but director Brian Desmond-Hurst and his actors handled the task with style.
The first Reel to Reel study, Mutants, Monsters and Madmen, is now available as a $2.99 eBook in the Amazon Kindle store and Smashwords.com bookstore. And you can find links to all of my novels, collections, and short stories, in their assorted print, eBook and audio forms, at the Now Available page!
Reel to Reel 