Title:
A Christmas
Carol
Format:
Single-camera
filmed television drama
Country:
UK
Production
company:
Coronet Films,
for ABC Television
Year:
1959 (first
broadcast on ABC in the UK on December 27th that year)
Length:
25 minutes
Setting:
Victorian
Background:
In my review of
the 2000 A Christmas Carol starring Ross Kemp, I mentioned how strange
it seemed that ITV, Britain’s main commercial television network since the
1950s, had taken until then to screen its own big adaptation of the Carol.
In fact, they had
shown this version in 1959 – although it wasn’t made in-house by any of the ITV
contractors. It was part of a series called Tales from Dickens which
independent producer Harry Alan Towers’ Coronet Films had shot at Elstree Studios, hoping to gain some interest from the US market. In the event this
never materialised, and although Towers was able to sell 13 episodes to ABC in
the UK, who had the ITV licence for the Midlands and the North of England at
weekends, they went out in dribs and drabs and did not get a network showing
across the ITV regions.
This is the oldest existing British TV version of the Carol. There had been some BBC versions beforehand, but they had all been done live and disappeared into the ether as they were broadcast, with no recordings made.
Cast and crew:
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| "Hi, I'm Fredric March. You may know me from such films as..." |
Starring as
Scrooge, Basil Rathbone manages to chalk up the notable and rare feat appearing
in three different screen versions of the Carol, as both Scrooge and
Marley. He had portrayed the late business partner in the 1954 US television version,
also taken the lead as Scrooge in a 1956 US TV version of the Carol,
called The Stingiest Man in Town. (Michael Horden would later manage the
same double, having played Marley in the 1951 film and 1971 animation before
being promoted to Scrooge duties for the 1977 BBC version). Rathbone, of
course, is best remembered for his many appearances on the big screen as
Sherlock Holmes.
Two-time Best
Actor Oscar winner Fredric March bookends appears as a narrator figure to put
the story in context, as he did with all of the Tales from Dickens
episodes. Presumably he was there to add some star power and American appeal to
help with the hoped-for US sale which never happened. March also has history
with the story, and indeed it was alongside Rathbone – he was the Scrooge to
Rathbone’s Marley in that 1954 US TV adaptation.
Director Neil McGuire was also an American import, although it’s difficult to find out a
great deal about him. If his Internet Movie Database entry is to believed he’d
worked as a title illustrator on films as far back as the 1920s, before gaining
assorted credits in design, production and writing. There’s then a big gap
before this pops up as the final item on his CV, having had little else
throughout the 1950s, so how or why he came to helm this is something of a
mystery. Producer Desmond Davis was a veteran of the very earliest days of
British television, having worked on dramas from the BBC Television Service at
Alexandra Palace in the 1930s. Not to be confused with the British film and
television director of the same name, this was Davis’s final work; he died in
December 1959, before A Christmas Carol had been broadcast.
Underdone Potato:
March’s intro – apparently
shot in Dickens’s own study in his former home, now the Dickens Museum – tells
us that this is a story about an old miser named Ebenezer Scrooge, and then
rather needlessly clarifies that it’s called A Christmas Carol before March
then reads a condensed version of the opening page with its famous “Marley was
dead…” intro. Then we’re straight into Fred arriving at Scrooge’s office, as
given its length this is a fairly breakneck version of the Carol.
Despite the
abridged nature of the production, throughout here is a great deal of Dickens’s
original dialogue included, and also little touches of his descriptive prose at
times, when March’s voiceover very occasionally bridges the gaps. There are no
charitable gentlemen, and after Fred has been seen off Scrooge is quickly back
to his lodgings.
There’s an
interesting little difference to the original where here it’s a small handbell
which levitates and rings by itself, rather than disused bells in the house,
heralding the brief appearance of Marley – played by Wilfred Fletcher but I
think looking somehow more like Charles Hawtrey. He has a cut-down version of
his exchange with Scrooge, who rather comically bids him goodbye with a little
wave.
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| Scrooge waves Marley goodbye! |
There’s no time
to pause, and Scrooge doesn’t even get to bed – no sooner has Marley gone then
he turns around and there is the first of the Spirits. Played by Walter Hudd as
an old man with long white hair and a beard, he looks rather like a Father Christmas
figure, or perhaps even a child’s image of god with his long white robes.
They do something
interesting with the visions here, which is carried on through all the ghostly
visitations. Rather than what’s being shown to Scrooge taking place in full
sets, instead it’s all rather more impressionistic, with Scrooge and the Spirit
wandering around a fog-shrouded netherworld sparsely populated with the odd
window or door and other bits of scenery once they go ‘inside’. This makes it
all look like some experimental theatre production, and while it was probably
done for budgetary reasons it actually works quite nicely.
We get a quick
look at Fan taking Ebenezer home from school, and then a trip to the Fezziwigs’
party – which probably also due to budgetary reasons, is a rather small affair,
with only old Fezziwig himself, Dick, Ebenezer and – invited to the party as
she often is by various adaptations – Belle being present. We get the break-up
scene with Belle too of course, a good performance here by Mary Webster, who in
the 1970s would be well-known to costume drama fans as Sarah Onedin in the
BBC’s The Onedin Line.
Present:
Before we get to
the Ghost of Christmas Present, we have the gap where the ad break would have
gone in at the time, with March reappearing afterwards to recap everyone about
where we are and what we’re up to. Alexander Gauge – known to ITV viewers as Friar Tuck in the 1950s The Adventures of Robin Hood series – plays the ghost as he usual
rotund and bearded figure, but his manner is a bit more like that of a
nightclub bouncer than genial spirit of festivity – “You’re coming with me!” he
warns Scrooge when they first meet.
Still wreathed in
mist with minimal scenery, we get scenes at Fred’s house – which unlike the
Fezziwig party, does actually seem quite fun and jolly even though there are
only a few of them there – and then at the Cratchits’ dinner table. Unusually,
though, there’s no toast to Scrooge as “the founder of the feast” on this
occasion.
Yet to Come:
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| A scene from the present, shrouded in fog. |
The Spirit here
is covered in a hood but has human hands and forearms, making him look rather
like some sort of mysterious monk, as it also does in one or two other
versions. We see the Cratchits mourning the death of Tim, and we get Bob
telling of his encounter with Fred and Fred’s offer of help to them, which
isn’t always included in every version.
Then it’s a brief
dip in on some of the gentlemen discussing Scrooge’s death – although not the
“if a lunch is provided!” bit – and a little of Old Joe buying his bed
curtains, before the dreaded visit to the gravestone.
What’s To-Day:
Scrooge doesn’t
shout down from his window at a boy outside, but instead walks out into he
street and speaks to him, getting him to go and buy a turkey and have it
delivered to Bob – anonymously, however, so he can still play his little trick
the next day. Before this, he goes round for Christmas dinner at Fred’s, where
he is warmly received by all.
In an interesting
little addition, Bob tries to use the fact that some mysterious benefactor sent
him a turkey as an excuse for his making merry and thus lateness, before
Scrooge reveals all is well and they clink glasses, presumably with that bowl
of smoking bishop Scrooge mentions in the book – he certainly pulls a cloth off
a bowl to reveal it here, anyway.
Fredric March
finishes everything off with a condensed version of the final passage from the
book.
Review:
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| "It could be YOU..." |
I have to be
honest and admit that I didn’t have very high expectations for this version,
given its short running time and the fact that it isn’t very well known.
However, I was very pleasantly surprised – while it’s obviously somewhat
squeezed up to get everything in, this is actually a rather well-done version
of the tale. All the main elements are present and correct and quite well
spaced-out given the limitations of the production’s length, and they seem to
have done as much as possible to include as much original Dickens text as they
could.
Rathbone makes
for a very good Scrooge, perhaps no surprise given his pedigree, but the film
is generally well-performed throughout. Production-wise, necessity seems to
have proved the mother of invention, and the creative use of – effectively –
smoke and mirrors to get through the number of different scenes they needed for
what Scrooge is shown by the Spirits actually makes this version quite
distinctive, and works to its advantage.
In some ways,
perhaps because of its length, this reminds me a lot of some of the silent versions of the 1910s and 1920s, but just goes to show how much more you can do
and further you can reach with that extra element of sound added. The version
it most closely resembles, however, is the 1949 US TV version – both 25
minutes, both made independently and then desperately flogged to individual
stations, both featuring an in-vision narrator / host, a well-known actor
himself pretending to read from a prop copy of the book – and it does a far
better job than that one did of boiling the Carol down to this length
and with a limited budget.
In a nutshell:
Not at all bad,
and while it certainly isn’t in the first rank of Carol adaptations, if
you only wanted a comparatively short version to give someone a decent flavour
of the original story, you could certainly do a lot worse than this.
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