Ebenezer
Format:
TV movie
Country:
Canada
Production
company:
Nomadic Pictures,
for Image Organisation
Year:
1998 (the US TNT
cable network showed it on November 25th that year)
Length:
90 minutes
Setting:
The wild west of Victorian-era
Canada
Background:
That rarest of
things, indeed the first of these I have covered on this blog – an adaptation
of the Carol which is neither British nor American. That said, despite
its Canadian production it does feel very American; it is set in both
countries at different points, but very much evokes the typical flavour of the American wild west.
I’ve actually
been able to find out very little about the background of this film, but an end
credits ‘thank you’ to the ‘Canadian Television Cable Production Fund’ shows
that it did benefit from some state funding, as part of an initiative to get
more Canadian-made content on-air in ‘under-represented’ categories –
presumably in this case scripted TV movies, which I can imagine would be
dominated by American-made fare in Canada.
Nomadic, the
production company, were founded in 1995 and are still going, described on their website as “one of the most active production companies in Canada.” Their
website also describes this as having been made for TNT, so that November 25th
1998 premiere date is probably the correct one, without an earlier Canadian
showing.
Cast and crew:
 |
| Ebenezer Scrooge: gambling man. |
American actor Jack Palance stars as Scrooge – another Oscar winner to add to the list of Carol
stars from down the years, having won the Best Supporting Actor award for City
Slickers in 1991. There are a couple of other American actors in main
parts, but otherwise as you’d expect along with the filming locations and the
crew, the rest of the cast are predominantly Canadian.
Scriptwriter
Donald Martin is also Canadian, and seems to have developed something of a line
in Christmas TV movies. In addition to Ebenezer, his other such credits
include Operation Christmas, Christmas Homecoming and Christmas
Town. Director Ken Jubenvill had helmed various TV drama series, including
episodes of the 1980s helicopter-based action show Airwolf.
Underdone Potato:
They really do go
all-out to try and make this feel like an old-fashioned western, so much so
that it at times feels like a parody of one. The whole town set looks like
something from a wild west theme park, and characters go around saying things
like “dang it!” and talk about how they “moseyed in” to the saloon bar.
Said bar is owned
by cigar-chomping gambler and businessman who “owns half the town,” Ebenezer
Scrooge. He is described, rather distractingly for British viewers, as a “geezer” by
young Sam Benson, a short-sighted cowboy who Scrooge cons out of his money, his
land and – most upsettingly of all for Sam for some reason – his horse by
cheating at cards.
Scrooge thinks
Christmas is a “hogwash” rather than a “humbug,” and fires his bartender and
chief assistant Bob Cratchitt (with an extra ‘t’ for no given reason) when he
discovers a secret compartment holding extra cards built into the table where
Scrooge always cheats people out of his money. This is after we’ve had probably
the sequence which most fees like a comedy sketch in this production, near the start
where Scrooge demands Bob take off and give him one of his boots, so that he
can throw it at some carol singers outside. “But it’s my last one, Mr Scrooge!”
Soon after he’s
dismissed, Tiny Tim turns up and gives Scrooge a hug, for reasons which are
never adequately explained, seemingly convinced there is some good in him. When
Scrooge’s Mountie nephew Fred had hugged him earlier he’d threatened to punch
in the mouth the next person to do so, but he at least doesn’t carry through on
this threat.
Speaking of
things which are never explained, Scrooge evidently has a tradition of going to
have his Christmas Eve meal in the local whorehouse, where Erica Marlow, the
daughter of his former business partner Jacob, works as a cleaner. Jacob had
told Scrooge to give her the saloon when he died, but Ebenezer has reneged on
that promise. Erica is also Sam’s fiancée, although a very understanding one –
when he tells her that evening how he’s gambled everything away, she for some
reason isn’t extremely pissed off with him. It’s made clear Scrooge never does
anything more than eat at the whorehouse, once a year – much to the surprise of
the woman who runs it, Martha (named for the Cratchit daughter in the book?
Quite a change of occupation if so!) and her very well turned-out ‘girls’.
Scrooge goes back
to his rooms at the top floor of the local hotel, where that night Marlow
appears. Why they decided they had to very slightly change his name,
having kept Scrooge’s the same, I have no idea. Perhaps it has something with
also having added that extra ‘t’ on the end of Cratchit. Having tried to failed
to shoot him, Scrooge is dismissive as Marlow – no chains – warns him he is
doomed to walk the Earth forever in death, or crawl in Scrooge’s case, if he
doesn’t heed the warnings of three spirits who are coming to visit him, and
change his ways.
Past:
 |
| Nephew Fred, doing his best to appear serious despite looking like either an overgrown bellboy or something off a chocolate box. |
The first spirit
is a Native American woman, who Scrooge had earlier glimpsed coming out of the
whorehouse. After some faffing about on the balcony getting him to fly, she
takes him back to a childhood Christmas in his native Philadelphia, revealing
how he had to be taken out of a school that he loved because his father had
lost his money in a poor investment.
Later, we see
Scrooge working for Fezziwig – or ‘Fessiwig’ as his shop sign has him, although
it’s spelt the traditional way in the end credits. There’s no massed ranks of
partying – all the way through this reeks of being a rather cheap production –
and instead we see Scrooge stealing the Christmas Eve takings and running off
to look for gold in the west. He claims to the ghost that he left a note
promising Fessiwig he’d pay the money back, but he left it in a bloody stupid place,
only just tucked into the front door of the shop, and sure enough it blows away
in the wind. He never did pay the money back, though.
Scrooge ends up
in a wild west town called Deadwood – hmmm – and meets Rebecca Gordon, who
fills the Belle role here. Their relationship lasts longer than the one in the
book with Belle, however, and they actually get married. Scrooge ends up
running the Gordon family cattle ranch, with old man Gordon signing it over to
Scrooge on his deathbed, only for Scrooge to sell it to and unsuspecting dupe
when the cows start dying of a mystery disease. There’s also mention of Fred
here – he seems to be Scrooge’s nephew by marriage rather than by blood in this
version.
Scrooge and
Rebecca head for Canada, where he does indeed find gold and become rich – “I
love Canada!” he declares, and you wonder how they managed to resist the urge
at this point to flash up a caption with details of the Canadian Tourist Board.
Rebecca, it turns
out, also loves Canada – or at least its police force, running off with a
Mountie, never to be heard of again but helping to fuel Scrooge’s dislike of
the force.
Unusually, we cut
back to the real world at this point too, with Erica having told Sam that she
keeps her father’s old key to the saloon on her necklace. The two of them sneak
back there and find the secret of how Scrooge cheats at cards. They go to the
hotel to confront him, where after initially thinking they are head and the
next ghosts, Scrooge dismisses them, but is called out by Sam for another wild
west cliché – a shoot-out at high noon the next day, one shot each.
Present:
 |
| The Mountie of Christmas Present |
The actual Ghost
of Christmas Present turns out to be… another Mountie, not exactly to Scrooge’s
delight. He takes Scrooge to see Christmas at the Cratchit(t)s’ house, where
it’s Tim who proposes the toast to the old man, and they all seem pretty happy
about it. Indeed, Mr Cratchitt – not usually fond of the miser – laments “poor
Mr Scrooge!”
We also see Fred’s
Christmas pageant at the local opera house, which seems to be a sort of
pantomime-type production. Fred also toasts Scrooge, although there are no
further hints given about the precise nature of the connection between them,
and why Fred hangs around here if he’s not a blood relative.
Yet to Come:
The Spirit is the
traditional hooded figure, albeit with long pale hair visible at times –
perhaps this is meant to fool you, as it did me, into thinking that it’s going
to be Rebecca beneath the hood. It doesn’t take Scrooge very far into the
future – indeed, it does what the Ghost of Christmas Present usually does
(although didn’t in his case, having only shown him Christmas Eve), and takes
him one day into the future, into Christmas Day. Odd how we never really talk
about there being two Ghosts of Christmases Yet to Come in the book, and
Present is just lying about it, isn’t it? I suppose he means the Christmas season,
but still…
Anyway, we’re
taken to the high noon gunfight, where Sam and his myopia don’t stand a chance,
and he’s shot dead. I had thought that this was going to be an interesting
twist on the usual formula, with Scrooge being moved by someone else’s
death which he had directly caused, rather than his own. But after an argument
with Erica where she wants him to confess to having cheated Sam and driven him
to the fight, he falls to his death from a balcony, so it is indeed more
himself that he ends up feeling sorry for. Nobody except Tim hears him calling
for help as he lays dying, and everyone’s too busy rushing Tim himself to the
doctor to notice.
At the end of the
segment, at Tiny Tim’s funeral, Scrooge turns on the Spirit and unmasks it –
the long hair turned out to be a red herring, and it’s the face of Scrooge’s
own father which is revealed.
With the
aforementioned long hair, for some reason.
What’s To-Day:
 |
| Heeeeeeeeeere's Daddy! |
Scrooge doesn’t
go wild with excitement when he awakes as in most versions. Indeed, he keeps
things quite cagey as it turns out he’s slept through most of the morning and
it’s nearly time for his noon shoot-out.
He goes down
there as if he’s taking it all seriously, and allows Sam to shoot first knowing
that his short-sightedness means he’s in little danger. Then he walks up to
Sam, tells him not to insult him again, and gives him back his land and his
horse. He also gives Erica the bar, before heading off to the Cratchitts to
dispense presents – including, you’ll be happy to hear, a new pair of boots for
Bob – and ask if he can take Tim back to Philadelphia for medical treatment.
Later in the day
he appears in the Christmas pageant, and there’s a well thought-out bit where
people still boo him when he rides in as Father Christmas, as they’re either
not aware of it not convinced by his transformation. However, he wins them
round by singing the same soppy Christmas song we’d seen him sing as a child in
the Christmas Past section.
The Father
Christmas business is interesting, actually – it’s not me being stubbornly
British and just calling him that here, it’s what they refer to him as several
times in the scene. This feels very unusual for a North American production,
and is perhaps down to its Canadian origins – possibly the term ‘Father
Christmas’ is better-known there than it would be in the States? Scrooge as
Father Christmas isn’t of course a new idea; it’s perhaps most prominently done
in the 1970 musical.
Review:
It’s certainly an
interesting idea to take the story of A Christmas Carol and transplant
it to a Wild West setting. The description, however, is more engaging with the
reality, and there’s little to recommend here. The whole thing is chock-full of
Wild West clichés that would have seemed almost beyond parody even twenty years
before this, and the whole thing is hamstrung by beginning so slowly.
Palance may be an
Oscar winner, but he’s not great as Scrooge – oddly, he feels much more
convincing in the brief period we see him as the reformed character than when
he’s rather chewing the scenery as the traditional miser. All of the female
characters feel rather wet and underwritten, too – I know the Carol is
probably lacking in female characters anyway, but if you add more in and boost
their parts, it doesn’t help if they’re not even as good as the few in the
book.
You can make a
decent North American version shot in Canada – the likes of An American Christmas Carol prove that very well. But sadly, this doesn’t have anywhere
near the care and craft which was put into that production.
In a nutshell:
A nice idea done
badly – I’m sure there is a very good western version of the Carol to be
made; but this isn’t it.
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