Title:
Charles Dickens’
The Christmas Carol
Format:
Short all-film production made for sale to US television
stations
Country:
USA
Production
company:
Jerry Fairbanks Inc, for The Teletec Company
Year:
1949
Length:
25 minutes
Setting:
Victorian – a mention of Bob’s wages being “15 shillings” suggests we’re supposed to
be in Britain, although the accents are almost all American, and evidently
shillings did survive as common currently in parts of the USA deep into the 19th
century.
Background:
We’re in the very early days of television here, and this
is what the Americans would later come to call a direct-to-syndication
production – meaning not something made by or for one of the main broadcast
networks, but made independently for sale to individual stations across the
country. This is presumably part of the reason why it’s a film production,
rather than something made live in a television studio as was still common in
the USA – and remained so for much longer elsewhere – at the time.
Cast and crew:
The most famous name on display here is that of Vincent Price, the actor most commonly associated now with his horror film roles, or
perhaps his narration on Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
Only really being personally familiar with him from the latter, I was rather
surprised by his somewhat camp performance here. Still, he’s a cheerful
enough presence as an on-screen narrator who provides linking scenes “reading”
from a copy of the book in a modern living room – although you’d think that if
they had a copy of the book handy, they might have at least got the title
right…
Speaking of errors, Taylor Holmes here plays “Ebeneezer”
Scrooge, with two Es in the middle, although I’ll be kinder on them for this mistake as it’s
one I myself made for several years when I was a younger man! Holmes had
enjoyed a long career on the stage and in film, managing to survive the
transition from silent to sound films, and perhaps his highest-profile screen
credit is a small part in Marilyn Monroe’s Gentlemen
Prefer Blondes. He was in his 70s by this point, and quite lively for it,
but his melodramatic and over-the-top “Ebeneezer” will not go down as one of
the great screen Scrooges.
Future Bond girl Jill St. John, who appeared opposite Sean
Connery in Diamonds are Forever, has a
small role as one of the Cratchit children. She was just nine years old at the
time, and credited here as Jill Oppenheim.
Adapter and director Arthur Pierson had been both an
actor and a director for some years, but probably did his most notable work
after this, as a story supervisor on animated classics The Jetsons and The
Flintstones.
Underdone Potato:
Just a visit from Fred to the money-changing chambers,
with no businessmen trying to solicit a donation from Scrooge. Fred’s visit is
brief, before Scrooge heads off home, and we don’t even have the door knocker
scene here. Marley looks quite good, and the scene between him and Scrooge
probably plays out about as faithfully as anything in this production does –
things go off the rails a bit later on!
 |
| Vincent Price - he's no Gonzo, more's the pity. |
Past:
As you’d expect from such a short version of the story,
all of the visitations from the spirits are quite brief. However, one thing
this version does get surprisingly right – and almost no other version does –
is that Scrooge is so shocked by his visitation from Marley that he goes to bed
still dressed, and remains so throughout his time with the spirits. (Although
having said that, the original’s illustrator, John Leech, seemed to make the
same mistake back in 1843).
The Ghost of Christmas Past is male rather than
androgynous, and doesn’t have any sort of cap for snuffing out. He shows
Scrooge a single vision of himself as a boy at school, and then oddly threatens
to show him his love leaving him (Belle isn’t named here), specifying that it
was “forty years ago.” However,
Scrooge begs him to leave him be before he can present this vision.
Present:
He has the fur-lined coat but not the beard of
traditional versions, and this Ghost of Christmas Present is more of a stern,
muscular bully than a jolly giant. He doesn’t seem at all celebratory, as he shows
Scrooge the Christmas dinner scene at the Cratchit household. Martha is there
but doesn’t hide, there’s not even a small goose to be had, and Robert Hyatt
looks utterly delighted with himself for managing to remember his “God bless us, every one,” line as Tiny
Tim.
Yet to Come:
An intriguing-looking Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. He
has something of the traditional appearance, but the fact we can see his hands
and more importantly, his eyes in a thin slit between his hood and some sort of
scarf covering the lower part of his face makes it look more like he’s wearing
a niqab than a grim reaper costume.
He shows Scrooge the Cratchits mourning Tiny Tim, and
then his own grave, although by this stage Scrooge was already well on the way
to becoming a reformed character, having submitted fairly meekly quite early
on.
What’s To-Day:
Scrooge does shout down to a boy, although we don’t see
him – just Scrooge at the window. He isn’t sent for a turkey, either, as the
whole thing suddenly goes drastically off-piste. We go to the Cratchits and
find Fred and his wife surprisingly coming to the door – Bob seems oddly happy
to see them, but apologises that they can’t offer much. Fred says that’s fine…
and in comes the reformed Scrooge behind them, carrying gifts and food.
Cheerful “Ebeneezer” also tells Tiny Tim that he met “an old friend of mine, a famous surgeon” at church, and that he’s
going to help make Tim better again.
 |
| "I am the Ghost of Christmas Present, and I am a mean bastard!" |
Review:
Despite having the advantages of twenty-odd years’ worth
of production advances and most importantly the addition of sound, this doesn’t
even manage to be as decent a retelling of the story as the 1923 silent version, which had a similar running time. When they don’t even have the
attention to detail to get the title and the main character’s name correct, you
can tell that they aren’t really paying attention.
It’s a cheap version, and cheapness is no sin in itself
as many a necessity has been the mother of great invention in film and
television down the years. But it all seems very slapdash, especially when
skipping so quickly through so many of the visions. What’s all the more
inexplicable, given the short running time, is that it spends the first two
minutes just having a choir warbling over the opening titles.
In a nutshell:
Another one for the completists. Save your attention for
any version which at least manages to get the title right.
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