A Carol For Another Christmas

Premiered 28 December 1964.

Daniel Grudge (Sterling Hayden) is a wealthy business man and war veteran who doesn't care about anyone else.

His nephew Fred (Ben Gazzara) visits him.  Fred is upset that a professor from the university where he works lost his credentials to teach abroad due to Grudge's interference.  Fred's project is shot, a year's work down the drain.  Grudge doesn't believe in cultural exchanges and refers to Fred's work and politics as the "domestic and international orders of the bleeding heart".

Fred visits his uncle, Daniel Grudge on Christmas Eve.

Fred reminds Grudge that they both cared deeply for Grudge's son,  Marley.  He died on Christmas Eve while fighting in a war.  Fred questions why mankind still allows such dying to happen. Grudge says missiles and bombs will bring peace.  Fred leaves.

As soon as his nephew has left, Grudge sees a ghostly presence at his front door.

Grudge finds himself on  a ship transporting dead soldiers.  He's greeted by a man in a soldier's uniform (Steve Lawrence).  This  man turns out to be the Ghost Of Christmas Past and it's 1918.  The ghost and Grudge talk about the millions of soldiers killed in various wars.  The ghost suggests that diplomacy would prevent lots of unnecessary carnage.  Grudge doesn't think talking to other countries is worthwhile, saying wars will never stop. The ghost asks what harm there is in trying to prevent wars.

Grudge and the Ghost Of Christmas Past visit Hiroshima.

The ghost the brings Grudge to "a foreign place" he had "a feeling about at one time": Hiroshima.  Grudge was there in 1945, shortly after the bombing.  Grudge from the past visits a makeshift hospital ward where some school girls horribly burned and blinded by the bombing are being cared for and he is very insensitive.  Grudge doesn't care that victims were school girls, not soldiers.  A WAVE named Lt. Gibson (Eva Marie Saint) is shocked by the horrors and disgusted by Grudge's attitude.  Present-day Grudge doesn't seem to have been much moved by the Ghost of Christmas Past's visitation.

Grudge proceeds through a doorway and finds a man in the dark, sitting at a long table filled with food who identifies himself as the Ghost Of Christmas Present (Pat Hingle).  He shows Grudge people starving in a prison camp.  Grudge is repulsed by the fact that the ghost is feasting in view of the starving people. The ghost points out that there are starving people all over the world whether or not they are right in front of you.  He asks Grudge how he justifies his "selective morality" and uses Grudge's own words against him.

Finally, Grudge encounters the Ghost of Christmas Future (Robert Shaw) and is shown a post-apocalyptic nightmare world.  He is shocked to see his town's meeting house destroyed and burnt out. Nations have dropped nuclear bombs on each other and civilization seems to be pretty much at an end.  Grudge asks why the UN didn't step in to stop that.

Robert Shaw as the Ghost Of Christmas Future.

The Ghost replies that "we dropped out...or they dropped out."  A rowdy crowd of survivors enters the burnt out town hall carrying a man on their shoulders who calls himself  the "Imperial Me" (Peter Sellers).  He is an insane dictator who preaches a gospel of looking out for yourself at the expense of everyone else that may still be alive.

The Imperial Me addresses his subjects.

Grudge's butler Charles (Percy Rodrigues) shows up.  He pleads with the crowd to consider an alternate course of mutual cooperation without which (what's left of) the world will end.  The crowd laughs and roughs up Charles.  Imperial Me charges him with treason and Charles attempts to escape.

Grudge wants to know where he is in this future world.  Did he die before it got this way?   He then asks if the world that he's been shown is the world as it must be, or the world as it might be?

Grudge wakes up on Christmas morning.  He has a bit of a rapprochement with Fred and goes to have breakfast in the kitchen with his butler, Charles.    Perhaps the visits from the spirits have helped Grudge to learn that "there must be involvement" if the world is to save itself.

J.A. Morris says:
A Carol For Another Christmas is a fascinating product of its time.  It was funded by Xerox and was intended to promote the diplomatic goals of the United Nations.

The special was written by Rod Serling, who was famous for hosting The Twilight Zone and for writing many of its most memorable episodes. This special feels a lot like an extra-long episode of that series.  You expect Serling to pop up on screen and announce "Daniel Grudge doesn't know it yet...but he's about to spend Christmas Eve...in the Twilight Zone."

This is both good and bad.  The Twilight Zone was sometimes heavy-handed in delivering its messages.  That's the main problem with A Carol For Another Christmas. The other thing that gets old is that the ghosts all give speeches that go on a few minutes too long.  

But this odd Dickens adaptation has other qualities that make it worth watching.

I found it interesting partially due to the fact that I have a history degree, with a concentration on Cold War studies.  Its message, while somewhat awkwardly delivered, is essentially saying diplomacy will prevent nations of the world from destroying each other.

Sellers fans should seek out A Carol For Another Christmas.  His performance as Imperial Me brings lots of life and excitement to the "Christmas Future" portion of the special.  Sellers was one of the most gifted comic actors of his time, but he rarely played serious roles.  He is so downright scary here, that I almost forgot that this is the actor who was famous for portraying the bumbling Inspector Clousseau.  It's worth noting that Sellers and Sterling Hayden also both appeared together in another film earlier that year that dealt with Cold War politics, the classic Doctor Strangelove.

Robert Shaw is also good in his role as the Ghost of Christmas Future.  I thought he was the strongest of the film's three Ghosts.    

I should mention that A Carol For Another Christmas is much darker than the average Christmas special.  Grudge visits the site of the Hiroshima atomic bombing and observes children who are dying from radiation poisoning.  This is a powerful scene and is one of the more effective moments of the special, but is not recommended if you're in the mood for lighthearted holiday fare.

A Carol For Another Christmas is a flawed special, but it is worth watching because of the moment it represents in World History and for Sellers' riveting performance.

J.A. Morris' rating:

2 and a half candy canes.

RigbyMel says:

To my mind,  A Carol For Another Christmas is an interesting Cold War artifact, but that doesn't necessarily make for great general audience viewing.    The message is very well meaning, but muddy and as a result comes off as a bit hollow when all is said and done.    It is also presented in a VERY heavy-handed manner and would benefit from a bit more showing than telling in its narrative structure.

Even though there are lots of dramatic possibilities in any variation on A Christmas Carol,  I think that many of those chances are a little wasted and that Grudge's transformation is a little too small to be satisfying.

However,  the involvement of a great writer like Rod Serling and great actors like Sterling Hayden and Peter Sellers save A Carol For Another Christmas from being unwatchable.

It is interesting to note that this special is a bit of a rarity,  having only been shown on network television one time in 1964 and not again until it resurfaced on Turner Classic Movies in recent years. It is unavailable on disc, but seems to be cropping up regularly in TCM's December schedule in recent years.

It's not great, but it is of interest, especially if you are a fan of Sellers, Serling or history.

RigbyMel's rating:

2 candy canes


    

Doctor Who: "The Unquiet Dead"

"On and on I go, same old show.  I'm like a ghost, condemned to repeat myself through all eternity."  - Charles Dickens (as played by Simon Callow)

Premiered April 9, 2005

For those interested in the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey aspects of such things, this is the third episode of the 2005 re-boot of Doctor Who. 

The Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and his companion, Rose (Billie Piper) take their first journey back in time together, traveling to Cardiff, Wales on Christmas Eve 1869.  Charles Dickens (Simon Callow) is in town to perform a dramatic reading of A Christmas Carol before a packed house of spectators.

One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong ... 

Dickens is in a melancholy mood, feeling estranged from his family and as if his joy in living is wearing thin.

Strange happenings are afoot at a local funeral parlor, where corpses seem to be coming to life and are wandering around Cardiff, creating more corpses in their wake.  The undertaker, Gabriel Sneed (Alan David), wants to cover up the fact that the reanimated dead seem to be emanating from his establishment on the grounds that people knowing about it would be bad for business.

Sneed's maidservant Gwyneth (Eve Myles) wants to get help for their zombiefied corpse problem, but Sneed insists on taking care of it himself.   Gwyneth has clairvoyant abilities, about which she feels somewhat ambivalent, and Sneed has been using her skills to track down the wandering corpses.   The wandering corpse in question at this juncture belongs to an elderly woman who has just strangled her grandson as he leaned over her coffin to pay his last respects.

Gwyneth focuses on the old woman's last desire, which was to see Mr. Dickens' reading, so she and Sneed wind up at the reading around the same time as the Doctor and Rose.

All heck breaks loose as something ghostlike, gaseous and loud hisses forth from the reanimated old woman, who is seated in the middle of the audience at the reading.

The Doctor is (naturally) fascinated.  The audience is scared out of its wits.  Mr. Dickens is perplexed and thinks this must be some kind of a trick.   Rose is in the wrong place at the wrong time.  She gets chloroformed by Mr. Sneed and dragged back to the funeral parlor.

The Doctor enlists Charles Dickens' aid (and carriage) to go rescue Rose.

Solving the mystery of the "Unquiet Dead" will require a seance and considerable courage.

Will everyone survive the experience?   Will Charles Dickens locate his Christmas spirit and zest for living?


RigbyMel says:

Full disclosure,  Charles Dickens is one of my favorite authors and Doctor Who is one of my favorite tv series, the combination of the two is somewhat hard to resist where I am concerned.

I quite like the characterization of Charles Dickens by Simon Callow in this episode.

Dickens doesn't often appear as a character in tv or film, but it is worth noting that he has been played by Simon Callow on several different occasions other than this episode.  (Callow has also written extensively about Dickens and performed a one man show as Dickens, so one thinks he might have a pretty good handle on how to play him.)

Dickens was a clever chap and although he is definitely confused by and skeptical about the bizarre situation in which he finds himself (who wouldn't be?)  He manages to deal with it fairly well and actually helps to save the day when the Doctor and Rose get trapped.

The Doctor:  "I saw the Fall of Troy!  World War Five! I pushed boxes at the Boston Tea Party!  Now I'm gonna die in a dungeon ... in Cardiff!" 

This episode early in the re-boot of the series harks back to the educational aspects of Doctor Who that have always been present on the show.  Meeting historical figures is a favorite trope and Dickens' state of mind at the beginning of the episode tallies well with his actual biography.

There are bits of Ebenezer Scrooge evident in the world-weary Dickens we encounter at the beginning of the episode and also some fun parallels with Dickens' idealism as a writer and the Doctor's desire to save the world (literally) again and again.

After Mr. Dickens' encounter with some Christmas "spirits" and the Doctor, he is ready to reconcile with his family and "keep Christmas in his heart."  We even get a "God bless us, every one!" by the end of the episode.  

Speaking as a history geek, I also really love the interplay between the Victorian characters, the Doctor and Rose.  Gwyneth and Rose have a nice moment together in the scullery talking about boys and being a bit weirded out by their different approaches to proper deportment.   The Doctor manages to completely confuse Dickens when he says he is Dickens' "number one fan."  Dickens asks how the Doctor is like a device used for cooling oneself.    Shades of Christmas Past meeting Christmas Yet To Come, perhaps?

I would also like to point out that Gwyneth is a classic Dickensian orphan character in a heroic vein!

I do have a minor complaint about the ending seeming overly rushed, but don't want to go into detail as it might spoil the episode for those who have not seen it.

That being said, this is a wonderfully creepy and fun episode of Doctor Who and one of many great episodes of the series with Christmas themes and settings.

RigbyMel's rating:

3 and a half Candy Canes.

J.A. Morris says:

Like my co-blogger,I'm a huge Dickens fan, and Christopher Eccleston is my favorite Doctor.  Since this was the third episode of the Doctor Who revival, it played a big role in making me a devoted fan of the series.  With annual Christmas specials, the Doctor has become as much a part of Christmas as Rudolph and Charlie Brown.  But this was the first of his holiday-themed adventures and it first aired as a regular episode (in April).

In addition to the main plot, "The Unquiet Dead" marks an important evolution for Rose. She confronts the Doctor at one point when he wants to allow the Gelth to inhabit dead bodies.  Rose thinks it's indecent, the Doctor points out that they are dealing in a different morality with different values. She must get used to it if she wants to be his travelling companion.  However, Rose's concerns are justified in this instance.

One note about the cast:
Gwyneth is portrayed by Eve Myles, who later played Gwen Cooper on the series Torchwood, a spinoff of Doctor Who.  The series' creative team has said that Gwyneth and Gwen are "related" due to "Spacial Genetic Multiplicity."

"The Unquiet Dead" is one of my favorite episodes of the series and I enjoy watching it every Christmas season.  I highly recommend it to fans of Dickens and any Whovians who may not have discovered the series prior to the David Tennant or Matt Smith eras.

J.A. Morris' rating:

4 Candy Canes!

The Real Ghostbusters: "Xmas Marks The Spot"

Premiered December 13, 1986

The Ghostbusters are driving around, lost in Upstate New York, when their Ecto-1 ambulance breaks down.  

Winston (Arsenio Hall), Ray (Frank Welker) and Egon (Maurice Lemarche) wish they were home celebrating Christmas.  Peter Venkman (Lorenzo Music) scoffs at this, he’s never had any use for the holiday season. Venkman’s father had a job that kept him that often kept him away during Christmas when he was a kid.

They stumble on a small town that’s not on the map.  The buildings look old and all the people are dressed in Victorian fashions. 

We see a resident of the town, Bob Cratchit (LeMarche) buying a Christmas turkey.

Bob Cratchit with Tiny Tim on his shoulders.

The Ghostbusters hear ghostly noises and track them to a nearby house.  They find three ghosts talking to an old man. The ghosts are promptly captured & trapped. 

It turns out the old man was Ebenezer Scrooge (Peter Renaday), he’s very grateful for the Ghostbusters' intervention but gets angry when they ask for payment for their service. 

The Ghostbusters threaten to release the ghosts, but he pays them with a valuable coin over a hundred years old.  The age of the coin makes the Ghostbusters curious.  Scrooge decides to declare war on Christmas.

The Ghostbusters return to New York and are shocked to see no one celebrating Christmas. 

They wish passersby a Merry Christmas only to be greeted with “Bah Humbug”.

Scrooge's message has turned the Ghostbusters' assistant Janine (Laura Summer) against Christmas.

They learn that their upstate New York adventure somehow caused them to travel back in time to Victorian England.  They realize they've accidentally changed the future.

In the anti-Christmas spirit, New Yorkers greet each other with "Bah Hambugs."

The Ghostbusters captured the Christmas Spirits before they could teach Scrooge his lesson, and eventually Scrooge’s anti-Christmas sentiments caught on all over the world.  Scrooge authored a book called A Christmas Humbug that served as a manifesto against the holiday.  The Ghostbusters have accidentally destroyed Christmas! (Perhaps they should have remembered their Dickens.)

They hope that if they can go back in time again and release the ghosts, everything will go back to normal.  But that may not be an easy task.  Egon will have to go into the containment unit and free the ghosts, which could cost him his life.

This prompts the Ghostbusters to act as substitutes for the three Spirits Of Christmas, in case Egon's efforts are not successful. 

Peter stands in for the Ghost of Christmas Past.

Winston "understudies" for the Ghost of Christmas Present.

Ray poses as the Ghost of Christmas Future.

Can the Ghostbusters restore Christmas?  Even if they can, will Peter Venkman continue to hate Christmas?

J.A. Morris says:

The Real Ghostbusters is a show I remember but  I'd never seen an entire episode until I stumbled on this a couple years ago.  It's a fun Christmas episode, as long as you get past a few things.  For example, Scrooge is a fictional character, not a real one.   And like most time-travel stories, this one has paradoxes. 

This is not,strictly speaking an adaptation of A Christmas Carol, but it's a good homage.  In this episode we get not one,but two Scrooges, since Peter Venkman is lacking in Christmas spirit just like Dickens' old miser.  When the Ghostbusters are forced to stand-in for the Ghosts, they come up with some humorous techniques.  My favorite was using a View-Master as a "magic window" that let's Scrooge see his past!   

   
If I have any problem with this episode it's that the animation looks cheap and hasn't aged very well. 

Carolers sing outside the Ghostbusters' firehouse on Christmas Eve.

But the voice actors are very good.  Lorenzo Music, Frank Welker and Maurice Lemarche are big names in the voiceover world.  They're good here, even if they don't sound like very much like their movie counterparts.  And Arsenio Hall (years before he became famous as a talk show host) is also good as Winston.

The Ghostbusters and friends share a Christmas toast.

I can't discuss this series without mentioning Lorenzo Music.  He played the voice of Garfield in Garfield And Friends.  Music voices Peter Venkman here, a role played by Bill Murray in the Ghostbusters movies.  In 2004 the motion picture Garfield, the cat was voiced by...Bill Murray.  Life is funny sometimes!  

Marley's Ghost flees Scrooge's as the Ghostbusters arrive.

"X-mas Marks The Spot" is no classic, but it was fun and exceeded my expectations.  While it wasn't an adaptation, it still contained Dickens' message about treating your fellow humans with kindness at Christmas and year-round.  And it was a nice introduction to the series.  If nothing else, it makes me want to check out the Halloween and Thanksgiving episodes of The Real Ghostbusters.

J.A. Morris' rating:

3 candy canes.

RigbyMel says: 

I know I watched The Real Ghostbusters when it was first on  (my younger brother ADORED it), but I don't remember watching this particular episode until recent years.  

As J.A. Morris says, there are some clever touches to this episode, but there is also a LOT going on in it. The stumbling into an alternate time/dimension reminds me a lot of Brigadoon.  The Christmas-less world that the Ghostbusters inadvertently create has a bit of an It's A Wonderful Life flavor.   And, of course, there are the obvious references to A Christmas Carol throughout.  The sub-plot where Egon actually goes into the ghost containment unit in search of the captured A Christmas Carol ghosts that leans heavily on the sci-fi aspects of the series.   In point of fact,  there seems to be a bit too much going on in this little, cheaply animated half hour episode for it to have much cohesion.   

Also, when the Ghostbusters meet Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim, it bothers the heck out of me that Tiny Tim resembles a frog more than a human child.  

This is an amusing episode, but the lack of cohesiveness keeps it from being great.

RigbyMel's rating:

2 1/2 candy canes