The Stingiest Man in Town - 1956, television

Title:

The Stingiest Man in Town

Format:

Live television musical

Country:

USA

Production company:

Theatrical Enterprises, for NBC

Year:

1956 (broadcast live on NBC in the US on December 23^rd that year)

Length:

80 minutes

Setting:

Victorian England

Background:

Live anthology series were some of the staples of early British and American television drama, although live productions died off in the early 1960s, as did using multi-camera studios for drama at all in the US. There, bigger budgets and different market demands saw almost all scripted productions bar some sitcoms move onto film much earlier than happened in the UK and much of the rest of the world.

This isn’t a straight drama, however – like the 1954 American TV version this is a musical, but unlike that one this is indeed live. It was an episode in The Alcoa Hour (despite being longer than an hour!), a fortnightly anthology series named for the aluminium company which sponsored it, which alternated with Goodyear Television Playhouse on NBC from 1955 until 1957. This particular episode was broadcast live from New York, although I don’t know whether it was then performed live again a few hours later for the West Coast audience.

The Stingiest Man in Town seems to have been one of the highest-profile and best-remembered episodes of Alcoa Hour, with an original soundtrack album having been recorded by the cast, as advertised at the end of the broadcast. It lived long enough in the American popular consciousness to be considered worthy of an animated remake in 1978, although the 1956 version which survives today is a rather grimy film recording of the live broadcast.

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Cast and crew:

Basil Rathbone as Scrooge really does seem to have been Mr Christmas Carol in the 1950s. Two years before this he’d played Marley in the earlier American television musical, and three years later he was Scrooge again in another TV adaptation, this time a non-musical version made in Britain. There can’t be many people who’ve had three such prominent roles in three different versions of the Carol, and all within the space of five years, too.

Young Scrooge is played by Vic Damone, perhaps better known as a singer but one of the biggest names in the cast. Martyn Green as Bob was well-known as a leading man with the D’Oyly Carte company in their Gilbert & Sullivan productions, while Patrice Munsel who plays Belle was a distinguished opera singer, so they certainly didn’t hold back on getting a powerful singing cast in.

Janice Torre wrote the script and lyrics, with Fred Spielman handling the music. The pair were an established songwriting team whose best-remembered work these days is probably the song “Paper Roses”, written in 1960 but perhaps most famously a hit for Marie Osmond in 1973. Director Daniel Petrie had a hugely long and distinguished career in television, first directing for the medium in 1949, and his last work being a TV movie over half a century later, in 2001. A Canadian, he also worked in film and his 1980 film Resurrection saw two of its performers nominated for Academy Awards.

Underdone Potato:

Fans of David Croft sitcoms may like the opening line-up here – instead of a ‘You Have Been Watching’ sequence of shots of cast members at the end, we get a sort of ‘You Will Be Watching’ version, complete with voiceover of who each one of them is.

Unusually we don’t begin from Scrooge’s perspective, nor even from Bob’s as has occasionally been done in the past. Instead, in common only with the 1938 film version so far as I can recall, we begin with Fred, singing and dancing in the streets about “an old-fashioned Christmas,” which has a certain irony to it as many of the festive traditions we now regard as old-fashioned were either brand new or not yet established when the Carol was first written.

Also unusually for Fred, he has a present for his uncle when he finally finishes his song and goes in to visit him, although as you might imagine it’s not one which is particularly well-received, and we don’t really get a clear look at what it is. Scrooge sees him off, as well as the two charitable gentlemen, before Bob heads home with Scrooge being very specific on this occasion about how much earlier he wants him in on Boxing Day – two hours.

There’s an early appearance for Mrs Dilber in this version, wanting paying for doing the cleaning, and then she, a “rag-picker” character named Harry Hawkins who’s an invention of this version and a group of four beggars get the title number, “The Stingiest Man in Town”. The beggars are played by a singing group called The Four Lads, who also act as sort of Greek chorus, giving quick recaps of the story coming out of the advert breaks.

It seems odd that none of the main characters are present for the title song, which does seem to be there purely to allow time for Rathbone to get set-up in bet for the next scene, the visit of Marley’s ghost. Like Nephew Fred’s Johnny Desmond, Marley actor Robert Weede doesn’t even attempt to hide his American accent despite it being clearly a British-set version, but that’s more forgivable in a heightened-reality version such as a musical, I think.

We get a taste of Scrooge seeing some of the other helpless chained spirits, and a moment from the book which hardly any other version – perhaps no other version – does when Scrooge recognises one of them. I was interested and amused to see that as he does in the 1959 version, Rathbone sees Marley off with a little wave goodbye as he goes!

Bye bye Marley!

Past:

The Ghost of Christmas Past is an older, bearded man, going against what’s in the book and making for less of a contrast with the following visitor. He talks to Scrooge about his schooldays and his sister Fran, but we don’t see them – instead, we head straight to the Fezziwigs’ Christmas party, where as usual for most adaptations Belle has been introduced into the action early. As with Bob Cratchit being told exactly how early he has to be into work for the day after Christmas, they’re very specific about timing in this version – the spirit tells Scrooge that this party was “forty years ago.”

Neither Vic Damone as young Scrooge nor Patrice Munsel as Belle budge from their American accents either, but there is some nice live production work (saving the dip into view of a boom mic, impressively the only one I spotted in the whole thing) to transition from the party to a sort of dream sequence of their possible future together and them then drifting apart. There are some nice lines in their song together here with Scrooge saying he’s built a wall of gold to protect them, and Belle saying the wall of gold is now between them.

Said song does drag on, for a bit, however – I wondered whether perhaps this was deliberate, to give Rathbone a bit of a rest given that he’s in almost every scene.

The Ghost of Christmas Past.

Present:

The Ghost of Christmas Present is perhaps a little younger than usually depicted, but is his usual jolly self and even brings some backing dancers with him for his initial visit to Scrooge’s rooms. They play toys such as fairies and clockwork soldiers, and even manage to cajole Scrooge into a little bit of a dance with them.

Rathbone does a nice performance of being nervous and worried about being taken into the Cratchits’ house uninvited, concerned that Mrs Cratchit might hear him and the ghost talking. He also has a fun little bit of business with her when he takes a seat by the fire, and has to hurry out of it when she decides to sit down.

There’s a full bevvy of Cratchit children, with Martha unusually being the focus. She gets a song of her own, which takes the British Christmas tradition and crosses it over with the American as she sings to reassure her brother in a song which might as well be called “Yes, Timothy, There is a Santa Claus” – indeed, she has the very line, ‘Yes, there is a Santa Claus’ within it.

We then get a trip to Fred’s party, where he also gets a song, focusing on the nativity scene model set up at the side of his living room and giving a reminder of the Christian side of Christmas. There’s quite a good point made in this about gold being a rather pointless gift for Jesus when he was supposedly the supreme ruler of the universe.

Scrooge concerned about whether Mrs Cratchit will notice him.

Yet to Come:

The Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come has the traditional robes but human hands, and shows Scrooge a version of the Old Joe scene with Mrs Dilber and her friend Harry the rag-picker coming out of his office / house (the same building in this version, sensibly in a live production to save on sets and compact studio space) with their ill-gotten gains, including the clothes taken from his dead body.

We don’t see anything of the Cratchits mourning for Tim, but instead we go straight to Scrooge’s gravestone, where a group of dancers who might be spirits or perhaps demons of the underworld do a bit of interpretative dance which verges on ballet. Indeed, the bit with them carrying Scrooge around may remind you of a scene from over a quarter of a century later of the ballet dancers and Freddie Mercury in the video for Queen’s “I Want to Break Free”.

There’s something interesting here which isn’t often done – although is in more comic form in the more famous musical version from 1970 – when Scrooge has a chain of his own added by the spirits. As he begs on his knees for another chance, he see hands clasping at the spirit’s robes – but cleverly, they’re not Rathbone’s, as he’s nipped off back to bed on the set next door to be ready for the start of the final section.

What’s To-Day:

The 1951 film version was only a few years old at this point, and I wonder if the fact that Scrooge sees Mrs Dilber and joyfully greets her after he wakes was an influence on the same happening here? (Although as I’ve said before, the antecedence of that scene, like other elements of the 1951 film, seems to be in the 1935 version). She also takes the place of the boy out of the window, telling Scrooge what day it is.

Scrooge heads off to the Cratchits’ with presents for them all, and I like the way in which he interrupts part-way through the scene we have already seen in the Christmas present section. This means Tim doesn’t get his song about Santa Claus from Martha, but he confirms he does indeed believe in him after Scrooge’s visit. Luckily, the turkey Scrooge provides is already cooked, saving them the trouble of having to do it.

Scrooge declines the invitation to stay for lunch, instead heading off to Fred’s although we don’t see it. We do seem him lined up with the entire company to wave us farewell, although before we get the end credits we have a filmed advert for our sponsors, extolling the virtues of Alcoa Foil this Christmas time.

Review:

If, like me, you’re interested in the history of television and how it was made, then this is a fascinating production. American television abandoned live productions and indeed multi-camera shooting for most scripted shows aside from sitcoms far earlier than the UK and much of the rest of the world did, so this is a glimpse into a world and a type of television that before long would disappear altogether.

I suppose part of the problem is the fact that the audience would have been familiar with epic Hollywood musicals, so even the most ambitious live multi-camera studio production could ever compete with that. Nevertheless they certainly do their best, and while some of the songs do outstay their welcome a touch, they’re certainly much better than the ones in most of the other musical adaptations of the tale, barring the 1970 musical and perhaps the Muppet version.

For a live production with so much singing and dancing, there are impressively few missteps, too. There’s one boom shot I spotted, which I mentioned above, and perhaps one or two very minor line fluffs, but apart from that the cast all do extremely well. Rathbone in particular is excellent – a very good Scrooge, and it’s a shame that perhaps his performance has been forgotten over time.

In a nutshell:

If you’re not used to or don’t enjoy watching grotty, smeary film recordings of archive TV broadcasts then this may not be for you. But if you can stand that, then I think it’s an enjoyable and interesting watch.

Links:

IMDb