KYMM'S 365 DAY MOVIE CHALLENGE #49-#51: A Christmas Carol (1954), The Stingiest Man in Town (1956), A Christmas Carol (1977)

“On this darkest day of winter/Through the snowy woods we go/Gathering garlands for Christmas/Holly, pine, and mistletoe” 

This is another of the nice short versions, originally broadcast on Shower of Stars, with Fredric March as Scrooge (only 57 years old, aging himself up quite a bit, and with an enormous honker), and Basil Rathbone as Marley. It is a musical version, with a score by Bernard Herrmann, so we’ll find out if it has a song in the fabled “Belle tells Ebenezer he worships another idol, a golden one,” part of the story. 

It starts with a choir singing on the street, then we see the credits by someone buying the book of A Christmas Carol in a shop and they are all listed in the book, which is very clever. 

The story proper starts with the men collecting money for the poor coming into Scrooge and Marley’s, which is definitely different, but gives Scrooge a good entrance with “Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?” right from the get.

This is an entirely American version, accent-wise, though Scrooge still tells Fred that he is a powerful speaker and it’s a wonder he doesn’t go into Parliament. It’s kind of a “the hell with it!” attitude that is fine by me, and better than a load of bad accents all around. 

Basil Rathbone makes a fine Marley, and he and Fredric March work very well together, though the scene seems quite drawn out, particularly for a version as cut down as this had to be to fit into an hour-long show with commercials, AND add songs! But if you have a big movie star who is only going to be in one scene, then you make sure you use him to the fullest. 

Scrooge’s school days are gone, Christmas Past skipping straight to Fezziwig’s Christmas party, where young Ebenezer has a weensy lil nose, because the hardening of your heart against Christmas makes your nose grow exponentially, everyone knows that. Belle and Ebenezer sing, Belle with the voice of Marilyn Horne. They sing about a kiss for Christmas, then immediately break up. It wasn’t a very good song, but that seems excessive. 

The Ghost of Christmas Present starts out with an incredibly long song, there won’t be much time for the Cratchits! And baby Bonnie Franklin is in it as Martha, only ten years old, we want to see her! 

Tiny Tim is the only person in the entire cast attempting an English accent for no reason at all, and they play the game that should be at Fred’s party, which will almost certainly be skipped, since there is only 13 minutes left, and they probably need to sing more. 

With eight minutes left, they had the briefest appearance of The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come known to man, as it appeared as a mynah bird in a graveyard, but it is entirely effective. 

An interesting thing they did with the casting is to have people from Scrooge’s life as the Ghosts, Ray Middleton playing both Fred and the Ghost of Christmas Present, and Sally Fraser as Belle and the Ghost of Christmas Past. I haven’t seen it in any other version, and it certainly may have been to keep the cast numbers in check, but it definitely works. 

The ending it extremely weird, in that, for no reason at all, Scrooge does not bring a big turkey to the Cratchits, but instead just goes there and joins the dinner, eating up their food when they don’t have enough to start with. Then Tiny Tim starts to sing a song, but a chorus takes over as poor Fredric March has to listen to the whole thing in a big close-up, acting his heart out. I spent the whole of it wondering if Fredric March was really missing that tooth and he just wasn’t wearing that upper plate, or if they blacked it out. 

It isn’t the best version of A Christmas Carol ever made, but it is certainly an original one. 

“Come, say you’ll have dinner with us tomorrow, we’re having turkey!”

 “I’d rather have poisoned peacock with the Borgias!”

This next version, The Stingiest Man in Town, I never knew existed before this project!

I was looking up versions, and found a cartoon of the same name, but when I looked for it, I found this live television version (again) from 1956 that it was based on. It is a musical (again) starring Basil Rathbone(AGAIN!), as Scrooge this time, and Vic Damone, of all people on the planet earth, as Young Scrooge, and it was originally an episode of The Alcoa Hour. 

It’s a kinescope, so it doesn’t look fantastic, but it was lost for decades, so the fact that it exists at all is a miracle. A copy of the master reel was found in the home of a retired executive of Alcoa, according to IMDb, and it was released on DVD in 2011. 

This is an hour and twenty minutes without the commercials, so having a big song and dance number right at the beginning about how awesome Christmas is kind of generally doesn’t make for the truncation of the Ghosts, one hopes.

Nephew Fred (Johnny Desmond) does the singing, then sweeps into Scrooge and Marley’s counting house to sing at Scrooge, who sings back! Fred sings that Christmas is terrific, Scrooge sings that it’s all bah and humbug, and frankly, this song is a blast, and better by far than any of the songs in the Fredric March version previous. I now understand all of the posts I saw from folks who saw this program as a child and wore the album out for years afterwards. 

“I abominate old Saint Nick/His reckless spending makes me sick/I think Saint Nick’s a lunatic/When you say good old Nicholas, I say bah!”

Marley visits Scrooge in his bedchamber and sings about his ponderous chain, then the Ghost of Christmas Past, who looks more like Christmas Present to me, takes Scrooge walking and they discuss the lonely schoolboy that he was and the scene with little Fan, which is good, because that way it is included even if it would be too difficult to add into a live broadcast. 

Then we are at Fezziwig’s and we see Vic Damone as Young Scrooge, and Old Scrooge says, “Good gracious, was I that good looking? I can’t believe it!” to which the Ghost of Christmas Past wryly replies, “A lot can happen in forty years!” Not only the fact that Young Scrooge has a thick American accent, and in forty years, he becomes British!

As with every other musical version, the creators are thrilled with the party at Fezziwig’s, since it is such a natural place for a big production number. 

Young Scrooge sings to Belle about how much he loves her in his golden dreams, but I’m thinking those golden dreams might end up being more about, well, gold. As the song goes on, he builds a wall of gold between them, and she cannot get through it to him. It’s not a subtle metaphor, but it works. The song goes on too long, but Vic Damone was a star and what else were they going to do?

The Ghost of Christmas Present brings ballerinas and toy soldiers to dance around and sing. Much singing at the Cratchits’ house about Santa Claus, then at Fred’s about Jesus. Basil Rathbone gets lots of rest time. 

Then, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows him his grave, and dancers in black drape chains all over him, and dance very Martha Graham style around the tombstone. And that does it for Scrooge, he proceeds to sing about how much he wants to help the human race. 

They do a great live television trick, where Scrooge finishes the song and falls to the ground below camera range. Then a pair of male hands reach up and clutch at the Ghost’s robes while Basil Rathbone finishes his speech while scurrying across the set, off-camera, so that camera 2 can pick him up in his bed the next morning, clutching at the bedpost. His cheerful song after he finds out that he is alive is extremely charming, and his prancing around with joy is the best. 

As far as musical adaptations of A Christmas Carol originally shown as part of an anthology television series in the 1950s, starring Basil Rathbone go, this one is the far superior offering. 

“We’re quite close to the school now, we may see some of the boys! Unless…unless the term is over and they’ve all gone home.” 

“You’ll find the school not quite deserted, a solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still.”

“I know, it happened every year.”

This version is from the BBC, 1977, and also only an hour, so we’ll see how it stacks up with the Fredric March one in terms of fitting the story into such a tight slot. No musical numbers, though, which should help. My guess is that there will be no issues with the accents this time. 

It begins with Marley in his coffin, what with Marley being dead to begin with. Scrooge is played by Michael Horden, whose face I couldn’t quite place, but whose voice sounded extremely familiar, and I looked him up to find that he did a great deal of voice work, including Lord Frith in the animated Watership Down, so there you have it. Lord Frith to Ebenezer Scrooge isn’t quite as big a stretch as Bruno Ganz playing both Adolf Hitler and an Angel, but it’s similar!

This Scrooge is much less over the top awful than many. I have seen, much more matter-of-fact, more realistic. Unkind, thoughtless, selfish more than rampantly cruel. One of the better portrayals, definitely. 

The Ghost of Christmas Past is played by, of all people on the planet earth, Patricia Quinn, Magenta in Rocky Horror! I know she is an actress who has played many roles, but it’s still quite confusing to see her in different costume and makeup, and using her own British accent. 

The little Fan scene is in, and is very moving. We don’t see any part of the Belle sequence beyond the breakup, but an hour is an hour and the breakup is more important than the happy part. A very young Zoë Wanamaker plays Belle. For one single time, young Scrooge, (John Salthouse), looks very much like old Scrooge. 

Wow! The scene with Belle and her husband, where they discuss Scrooge, is actually in! It’s the first time I’ve seen it so far this year. It helps to not have to make room for musical numbers!

Bernard Lee (M from the James Bond films) plays the Ghost of Christmas Present, and we get Ignorance and Want, and then with the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come we get the scene with the couple who won’t be ruined because the mysterious unnamed person is dead, and the scene after Tiny Tim has died include the whole thing about Fred expressing his sorrow to Bob, not to mention the fact that we have my favourite scene where Scrooge surprises Bob the next day in the office, so this film, short as it is, includes important scenes that we hardly ever see. It is an absolute treasure. 

Kymm Zuckert is an actor/writer/native Angelino. When Kymm was a child, her parents would take her to see anything, which means that sometimes she will see a film today and say, “I saw that when I was eight, I don’t remember any of that inappropriate sex stuff!” Check out her entire 365 day blog @ https://365filmsin365days.movie.blog