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| In Which I Discuss A Possibly Forgotten Classic |
In 1951, Alastair Sim played Ebeneezer Scrooge in a famous adaptation of the Charles Dickins classic A Christmas Carol. It's still a popular version of the story to this day!
Three years later, CBS put on a variety show called Shower of Stars and made their own version, which I had literally never heard of until we found it on
Bennie Herrman?!
I love his music so freaking much!
But I'd never, ever heard of this version except perhaps as a footnote on Rathbone's Wikipedia page.
So we started it up and settled in.
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| I also had no idea it was available on DVD, though I have my doubts about the quality of the transfer... |
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| Btw, that's March as Scrooge with the charity men behind him. |
As far as adaptations go, this one's a bit more condensed than I'm used to, but it really works with the flow - I mean, the thing's only about 53 minutes long without commercials, so it's not going to have the space for every detail. Still, I could've done with about five more minutes of Basil Rathbone as Jacob Marley!
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| It's got some great effects for ghostly apparitions and Basil is fantastic. |
So you've got your basic story: Ebeneezer Scrooge (Frederic March) is a miserable turd who makes everyone around him miserable and is a miserly jerk, so his old partner decides "I'll do my best to keep this twit from hauling chains for eternity" and sets him up with some holiday spirits to smack some sense into him. This goes over as well as you might think, with Scrooge being disbelieving the whole encounter... until he sees evidence that yeah, his dead friend absolutely just hung out with him for a bit.
That is when things start going haywire for him.
See, this adaptation does one of my favorite things: the ghosts are people he knew or knows! Christmas Past arrives first, donning the guise of his lovely once-fiancee, Belle.
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| Who is charmingly lovely, though I doubt Ebeneezer ever saw her in such a state of undress in their past. By Victorian standards, this young lady is naked. |
Christmas Past reminds him that he used to love Christmas, but his love of money grew stronger than his love of Man and it cost him everything. His joy was consumed by coins. His heart was locked away by ledgers. His love left him so he could be with what she could see him loving more than her - cold hard cash.
Christmas Present appears next, and... honestly, the actor playing him is 1000% into the role. Ignorance and Want are nowhere to be found, as often happens in these adaptations, but neither is his big beard or his fancy robe! Then again, he kinda reminds me of Mr B Natural... but as a very accomplished (and soused) baritone. His "Very Merry" song will get stuck in your head.
Oh, I didn't mention that this is kind of a musical?
Yeah, there's a bunch of musical numbers, though all of them combined probably take less time than the "Very Merry" song from Christmas Present.
See, Christmas Present is played by Scrooge's nephew, Fred, who comes off as a bit of a doofus, but a lovable one. The actor as the Ghost definitely cranks that affability up to about 93 and goes hard. He drags Scrooge around like a confused child on holiday with a distant uncle and shows him Christmas at the Cratchits' home. Tiny Tim sings a cute song, and this is what breaks through to the miserly man, who begs to know if Tim would survive. Spoilers: Uh... no. No he won't. Not if Scrooge doesn't pay his dad a living wage...
So of course, this is where they really take some liberties, because there's no Ghost of Christmas Future. At all. Present simply... leaves. And Scrooge finds himself in a graveyard that looks nearly identical to the one from that godawful Spirit pilot I watched on the DC App...
He encounters first his grave, then, while panicking, Tiny Tim's. With his heart fully shattered and rebuilt into something more approximating that of a decent human being, albeit one wracked with guilt and shame (so... 100% normal), Ebeneezer wakes up, pulls the "I'M NOT A MONSTER ANYMORE PLEASE LET ME HELP YOU, EVERYONE IN NEED" thing we're all used to from the end of every Christmas Carol adaptation, and goes to visit the Cratchits for Christmas Dinner.
This is a wonderful adaptation, and the scoring from Herrman really takes it over the top. You'd expect far less from a television adaptation on a variety show, but it's quite lovely, and I would love to see it again.
Even if that "Very Merry" song drives me freakin nuts lol.
Go Enjoy Something!
FC
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