The Lost Carols - A Christmas Carol, 1950, television

Title:
A Christmas Carol
 
Format:
Live television drama
 
Country:
UK
 
Production company:
BBC Television
 
Year:
1950 – broadcast twice, both as live performances by the same cast; first at 9pm on Christmas Day, and then again in the For the Children slot at 5pm on Wednesday the 27^th.
 
Length:
Approximately 90 minutes. That was the scheduled slot, although live dramas could occasionally over- or underrun – but the evidence suggests this ran pretty much to time, as there’s no mention of anything to the contrary in the BBC’s audience research report.
 
Setting:
Victorian
 
Background:
For the second time, Bransby Williams was due to bring to the television screen his performance as Scrooge, which had become well-known on stage throughout much of the 20^th century to this point. And unlike his scheduled one-man performance from 1936, this time it did actually happen – but sadly, once again we are unable to see it now.
 
That one wasn’t really a ‘Lost Carol’ as it never actually happened in the first place, and it could also be argued that this one isn’t strictly-speaking ‘lost’ either. It never ‘existed’ to be lost at all, in a recorded sense, any more than a stage play does. It was performed live, twice, and on neither occasion was any effort made to preserve it for posterity. It simply went out into the ether, seen only by those in Britain who had television sets switched-on at the time, and was then gone forever.
 
And yes, it would have been seen by anybody who had a television set switched on – because at this point the BBC was still the only British television broadcaster. Their single channel was now being beamed out from two transmitters, at Alexandra Palace serving London and the surrounding area, and at Sutton Coldfield serving the English Midlands.
 
There were, however, now hundreds of thousands of television viewers, with the number increasing all the time. Television was still a way from being a mass medium at this point, but nor was it any longer the luxury of a tiny few.
 
The live performance, pretty much universal for all British television drama of the time, meant that, yes, the entire cast and crew were there on Christmas Day. It was also common for there to be a second performance, in this case just two days later, put out this time in the 5pm children’s slot so that younger viewers who had not had the chance to watch it first time around would be able to see it.

Bransby Williams appearing on television in 1957

 

All, however, did not go entirely well for Williams in this second performance. Having been forced to cancel his planned 1936 television debut at Scrooge due to illness, the second performance of this full-cast version almost went the same way. On New Year’s Day, the Daily Herald reported how Williams had become ill early during the December 27 transmission, and that he was “in agony for one and a half hours before the cameras.”
 
“I had hardly given my first bellow of rage before I was gripped by the most awful abdominal pains,” he was quoted as having told the paper. “My training prevented the viewers – in Children’s Hour – from knowing anything was wrong. They just saw my face working more than usual. The play ran according to script.” The Herald further added that “the contortions of his face through pain made Scrooge’s rage all the more frightening,” and that Williams had “refused to abandon his part, because there was no understudy.”
 
Several of the newspaper previews and reviews of the production mention how it took up the use of two television studios, rather than simply being done in one as was more usual – although it was not unknown for big productions to be spread across a pair. The Birmingham Post, in a preview on December 14, claimed that “Bransby Williams, in the part of Scrooge, will be working on one set, while the rest of the cast will be performing elsewhere, and the two pictures will be superimposed to give a suitably ghostly effect.”
 
While this was true for certain scenes, it gives the impression that Williams was alone in one studio and the rest of the cast in the other, which was not the case. Only the scenes with the ghosts were done separately in this manner, and not necessarily always in different studios, so that the two could be cross-faded. However, it’s still impressive that Williams and his co-stars were able to play effectively without having one another nearby, whether they were in the same studio at the time or not.
 
“There are about fourteen scenes,” the Huddersfield Examiner reported on the 20^th. “And approximately half the performance will be superimposed to give a suitably ghostly effect.” Producer Eric Fawcett had commented on the difficulties this presented in a preview in the Christmas edition of the Radio Times. “We are trying to keep the ghosts as ghostly as possible,” he told the magazine, “even though this entails the actors playing scenes while standing yards apart. Two-studio production will necessitate such careful work on the part of the cameramen, sound and vision-mixers and engineers – to say nothing of those dyed-in-the-wool enthusiasts, the studio staff.”
 
As to which studios these were, I have no hard evidence but I would say almost certainly the two original BBC Television studios, Studios A and B at Alexandra Palace in North London. The BBC had in 1950 begun using their newly-acquired facility at Lime Grove, a set of ex-film studios, with Studio D having launched at the children’s studio in May. Studio G had been opened for television with a variety spectacular on the Saturday before Christmas, but at this point drama production still seems to have been based at the Palace so it seems almost certain that A Christmas Carol came from there.

Alexandra Palace in 1946, with the transmitter mast above the BBC-occupied wing

Cast and Crew:
I wrote about Bransby Williams’s background playing Scrooge in my piece on the abandoned 1936 production, so there’s little need to repeat that here. It is worth saying, however, that at the age of 80 he must surely have been one of the earliest-born people ever to have starred in a television drama.
 
He did, however, have some level of assistance – The Stage the following month mentioned “Ewart Wheeler, who doubled so ingeniously for Bransby Williams in the recent televising of A Christmas Carol.” Wheeler is credited in the Radio Times simply for ‘other parts’, so you can imagine how he perhaps played Scrooge for certain shots seen only from behind, while Williams was prepared for a following shot or scene.
 
Among the rest of the cast, one name which leaps out to anyone familiar with the BBC’s 1950s television output is that of Patricia Fryer as ‘Fanny’ – Fryer would later play Margaret Appleyard, youngest of the Appleyard siblings in the BBC’s children’s soap opera-cum-sitcom The Appleyards, taking over the part for the second series in 1953 before outgrowing it herself in 1955, and returning for the one-off Christmas with The Appleyards in 1960. There is no Fan listed in the cast, so ‘Fanny’ is presumably a slightly-renamed version of Scrooge’s sister from the Christmas Past scenes, which Fryer would have been the right age for.
 
As is not exactly common but also not unique, the three performers playing the ghosts here double-up in other parts. Arthur Hambling as the Spirit of Christmas Past also appears as one of the stock exchange gentlemen discussing Scrooge’s death in the Yet-to-Come scenes; Julian d’Albie as the Ghost of Christmas Present – yes, they were billed as a mix of ‘Spirit’ and ‘Ghost’ – is also credited as a ‘portly gentleman’, and WE Holloway as the Spirit of Christmas to Come (no ‘yet’ in the billing) also portrays Marley.

 
Whether this was for effect or for economy is debateable, however it appears to have almost certainly been the former. ‘Young Scrooge’ actor John Bentley also has a credit as a night watchman appearing early on in the play, and similarly Old Joe actor Leonard Sharp appears as a crossing sweeper. Fryer too had a second role, credited as ‘Girl waif’ alongside Michael Edmonds as ‘Boy waif’ – from their placing in the order-of-appearance cast list, almost certainly these are Ignorance and Want from the end of the ‘Present’ section. This perhaps adds weight to the idea that the doubling-up was a deliberate effect, with some of the figures Scrooge encounters through the story having the faces of those who are familiar to him.
 
On the subject of familiar faces, several of the cast were old co-stars of Williams’ – he remarked to the Daily Herald after his illness during the second performance that “there was always one of my old pals – Jimmy d’Albie, Bill Holloway or Arthur Hambling – waiting to give me an arm. Once or twice they half carried me.” Kathleen Saintsbury, who played Mrs Cratchit, was also a friend and regular co-star from the stage, who would appear on Williams’s This is Your Life in 1958.
 

Kathleen Saintsbury appears on Bransby Williams' episode of This is Your Life in 1958

Perhaps one of the most notable names in the cast is Barbara Murray, as Belle – evidently not named here, as she’s only given as ‘fiancée’ in the cast list in the Radio Times. Murray was already a recognisable face from British films at this point, having co-starred in Passport to Pimlico the previous year, and would continue to be a notable screen presence in British cinema for some years to come. So it’s quite impressive that they were able to drag her away from her Christmas dinner to come and do this – although it is possible that her scene could perhaps have been a film insert, especially as Murray is not one of those who doubles up in another role. Such inserts were being used in television drama by this point, although only very sparingly and more often than not for outdoor and action sequences rather than dialogue scenes.

 
It was also the usual practice of BBC television drama at the time for there to be a single person credited as ‘producer’ who performed what might today be understood to be the functions of both producer and director – overseeing the production both administratively and creatively. This was the case here, with producer Eric Fawcett also having written the adaptation – although from an existing stage play version by Dominic Roche, rather than directly from the book. Fawcett had a long career with BBC Television, beginning as a producer on the pre-war service from Alexandra Palace in the 1930s and continuing right through until the 1970s as a drama director.
 
As a Doctor Who fan and someone with a great interest in the creation of that programme, I cannot resist noting the presence of James Bould as the designer. Thirteen years later, Bould would be the BBC’s Design Department Manager and one of those who was not keen about Doctor Who going ahead as he didn’t think his department had the time, manpower and resources to provide for its needs. He was presumably having a happier time here with a different story which went through the barriers of time.
 
Underdone Potato:
Without having had access to the script, it’s obviously very difficult to say anything much for certain about the specific elements of this version. However, with the cast listed in order of appearance in the Radio Times, we do know that Julian d’Albie, Leonard Sharp and John Bentley, later to appear as the Ghost of Christmas Present, Old Joe and Young Scrooge respectively, all appear early on, after only Williams as Scrooge, John Ruddock as Bob Cratchit and Robert Cawdron as Fred, so there seems to have been a deliberate level of foreshadowing there.
 
I have been able to read the BBC’s audience research report on the production, which notes how “There was praise… for the way the atmosphere of mid-Victorian London was suggested, especially in the opening scenes ‘which set the mood for the whole play’.”
 
Past:
The credits for Sean Lynch as ‘Boy Scrooge’ and John Bentley as ‘Young Scrooge’, as well as Patricia Fryer as ‘Fanny’ and Barbara Murray as ‘Fiancée’, indicate that we get the usual scenes of Scrooge as an unhappy schoolboy, and later breaking his engagement – or rather, having it broken.
 
There is, however, no credit for anyone playing Fezziwig, which suggests that the party scene was either omitted or scaled-down. There is a production credit for “Dances arranged by John Armstrong”, which would surely have been mostly likely to have been for a Fezziwig scene. Perhaps it was only briefly shown using extras.
 
Present:
Again, we can mostly only try and guess at what was shown from the cast list – but we certainly have the scene with the Cratchits, as there are credits for Mrs Cratchit, Martha, Peter, Tim and unnamed ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ Cratchits. Fred was already credited for his earlier appearance at Scrooge’s office, so it’s uncertain whether there was a scene at his Christmas lunch. I am inclined to think not, as there is a credit for ‘Ann Wriggs’ – seemingly an error, and meant to be Ann Wrigg without the ‘s’ – as ‘Mrs Fred’ but not until the very end – suggesting she is not seen until Scrooge visits after his redemption to go and make amends.

 
Yet to Come:
There are credits for the gentlemen who discuss Scrooge’s death, and for Joe and Mrs Dilber discussing the sale of his things, but with the Cratchits having been credited earlier it’s impossible to know whether their future scene was included here – but I suspect it probably was.
 
The unnamed reviewer, credited only as ‘Cathode’, in the Wokingham & Bracknell Times gives us an impression of how the Spirit was realised for this section, and they were not particularly impressed. Having praised the production generally, ‘Cathode’ felt that “the Ghost of Xmas Yet to Come looked too much like a member of the Ku-Klux-Klan.”
 
What’s To-Day:
Again, because most characters who would normally re-appear here have already been credited, it’s very difficult by this stage to be able to determine too many specifics without the script. However, we can say that there was Tony Lyons as ‘Boy with the goose’, and as mentioned above there does appear to have been a scene of Scrooge going to dine with his nephew as Mrs Fred is the final new character credited as appearing. We do know that Scrooge lifted up Tiny Tim at the end of the Christmas Day performance – because the Daily Herald noted Williams was unable to do so on the second performance due to his illness.

 

Review:
Obviously I cannot review the production myself as I have not seen it, and nor sadly will I ever be able to, and I have not currently been able to read a copy of the script. However, fortunately unlike for some lost versions of the Carol we can get at least some impression of what it was like, from contemporary reviews – both professional, and from ordinary viewers.
 
The BBC at the time did not yet compile viewing figure as such. They did, however, have a panel of several hundred families selected as being a representative cross-section of the audience, who recorded their reactions to the various programmes. From their responses, the BBC calculated that some 59% of television sets had been switched on for A Christmas Carol on Christmas Day, with 23% for the repeat in For the Children two days later.
 
The first performance had an average of 4.35 people watching per set in use, and the second performance 3.19. Both received very good ‘Reaction Index’ figures – the indication of how much those in the sample group who watched a programme had enjoyed it. The first performance had a score of 74, and the second 73. This was, as the audience research report noted, “well above the current average (63) for studio performances of plays.”
 
The report does also note, however, that “The audience for this programme, though large by normal standards, was by no means outstanding compared with others during the Xmas holiday period, large numbers of ‘guest viewers’ leading to high ‘viewers per sets-in-use’ figures for nearly all programmes.”

 
In terms of qualitative rather than quantitative feedback, it’s fascinating that the audience research report records an almost reverent attitude towards the Carol. Noting that 94% of the 272 who completed questionnaires related to the programme indicated that the story had already been familiar to them, the report suggests that “because this story now ranks as a Christmas tradition most viewers felt it to be beyond criticism.”
 
Not all, however. “A few admitted a slight feeling of aversion for its ‘outdated’ sentimentality and insistence on a moral ‘which now seems to have lost much of its original point’.” While there was “little comment on individual points,” some viewers felt that “the length of the novel made it a difficult subject for television and that some cutting, especially in the scenes depicting Scrooge’s earlier life, would have done no harm.” Which seems a strange thing to say given it’s quite a short book, and a 90-minute slot ought to enable it to be done fairly well.
 
Williams’s performance as Scrooge was “widely regarded as little short of perfect,” with some who had seen him play the part on stage in the past “delighted to find he could still play it ‘with all the old zest’.” John Ruddock as Cratchit, Thomas Moore as Tim and Robert Cawdron as Fred we also “singled out as especially memorable.”
 
The production techniques seem to have gone down well, also, with report stating that viewers “thought very well of the production and settings, particularly of the camera-work and sets in the spirit scenes. As several said, here the resources of television came into their own, enabling the viewer to see things which were quite impossible to manage on the stage.”
 
Among the professional reviewers, George Campey in the Evening Standard admitted that “the attention of some of my guests wandered during the first hour.” However, he himself “sat enthralled by the encounters between Scrooge (played with veteran knowledge by Bransby Williams) and the assorted spectres in a production which fully evoked the Dickensian spirit. This play must have been a producer’s nightmare. Eric Fawcett, at the helm, handled the tricks and the action with consummate skill.”
 
AE Jebbett in the Evening Despatch liked Williams’s “smooth melodrama” as Scrooge, but felt overall that the production was too long. Cyril Butcher in The Sketch’s round-up of Christmas viewing had no such qualms, praising Eric Fawcett for having “turned in one of the best jobs of work in his career. The story, with its ghosts and spirits, obviously lends itself to a full use of camera superimposition – a dangerous trick used by inexpert hands. But Mr Fawcett’s are just about as experienced as one will find. Nor did he, in this welter of technicalities, forget that he was dealing with a lovely and moving tale which needs most delicate handling. Thank you, Mr Fawcett.”
 
‘Cathode’ in the Wokingham & Bracknell Times “had that queer feeling that one gets when one visits an entirely strange place and feels ‘I have been here before.’ For everything in the play was just as I had imagined it. The brilliant Scrooge by that Grand Old Man of the stage, Bransby Williams, really made old Ebenezer live, and Dorothy Summers gave an excellent portrayal of Mrs Dilber.”
 
Apart from the aforementioned reservation about the costume of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, the only criticism ‘Cathode’ made was that “the Ghost of Xmas Past was not nearly as awesome as it might have been.”
 
In a Nutshell:
An important milestone in the Carol’s television history, it’s a shame we can’t see this today – but that’s nobody’s fault, it’s simply the way things were. You may as well blame a stage play for ‘not existing’.
 
Links:
IMDb
Radio Times

Scrooge - 1951, film

Title:
Scrooge
 
Format:
Black-and-white feature film
 
Country:
United Kingdom
 
Production company:
George Minter Productions
 
Year:
1951
 
Length:
87 minutes
 
Setting:
Victorian
 
Background:
The first major British version of A Christmas Carol since 1935’s Scrooge, this version from sixteen years later appears to be influenced by the 1930s effort, and not simply through having the same title. There are particular sequences – not ones featured in the book – which seem to have been inspired by the 1935 version.
 
George Minter Productions, the company which made the film, and Renown Pictures, which distributed it, were both run by the eponymous Mr Minter himself, with Renown having been active since the 1930s. The year after Scrooge they followed up its success with another Dickens adaptation, The Pickwick Papers, scripted by Scrooge screenwriter Noel Langley and this time directed by him as well.

Cast and crew:
Director Brian Desmond Hurst was an Irishman, born in Belfast, and has been acclaimed as one of the most successful film directors to have come from that island. A veteran of the First World War, where he’d fought at Gallipoli, Hurst had moved to Hollywood in the 1920s where he’d learned the filmmaking craft from noted director John Ford. He moved back across the Atlantic to London in the early 1930s where he went on to work with Alexander Korda. He directed over twenty films, although Scrooge is probably the best-remembered of his work today.
 
Scriptwriter Noel Langley was a South Africa, although he later became a naturalised American citizen. He’d moved to the UK after graduating from university in the early 1930s, where he became a playwright and novelist, before making the move to Hollywood towards the end of the decade. There he was one of the co-writers of one of the most famous feature films ever made, The Wizard of Oz. After the Second World War he returned to working in Britain, where he wrote a series of screenplays for UK-made films, before later returning again to the USA.
 
Alastair Sim’s role as Scrooge is regarded as the definitive part of his career, and although he also had popular success elsewhere – such as in the St Trinian’s films – it’s by far and away the role for which he is best remembered, with some regarding him as the definitive screen interpretation of the part. Sim and his Marley, Michael Horden, would return to their roles for Richard Williams’s animated version of the tale in 1971, with Horden eventually earning a promotion to the Scrooge part himself when he starred in the 1977 BBC television version.

 
Other notable names in the cast list are those of the two actors who play the younger Scrooge and Marley – George Cole and Patrick Macnee, respectively. Both would go on to enjoy huge success later in their careers with popular television drama series; Cole as Arthur Daley in Minder and Macnee as John Steed in The Avengers. Cole was a protégé of Sim’s, and also appeared alongside him in the St Trinian’s films.
 
Kathleen Harrison and Jack Warner, who were well-known for co-starring in the Huggetts trilogy of films, appear as Mrs Dilber – in an expanded role for that character, so much so that Harrison gets second billing after Sim – and an original character called Mr Jorkin, who in this version is Scrooge’s employer after Fezziwig. Speaking of whom, future Carry On star Hattie Jacques is another familiar face putting in an appearance, here as Mrs Fezziwig.

Underdone Potato:
Fairly unusually, although by no means the only diversion this version will take into its own original territory, we begin with Scrooge not in his counting house, but at the exchange. Here he has a brief discussion with the two businessmen who will later be seen in the Yet-to-Come section, discussing his death.
 
We also see Scrooge dismissing someone who owes him money pleading to be allowed more time, and being dismissed with the assertion that it makes no difference what time of year it is, and the money would still be owed if it were a hot day in August.

When Scrooge finally does make it back into the office and we begin to pick up the start of the book, the order of Fred’s and the Charitable Gentlemen’s visits have been swapped around, and indeed the latter two are already waiting for him when he arrives. Which makes you wonder a bit about exactly what their conversation was with Cratchit when he admitted them and allowed them to wait, as they still enquire when Scrooge arrives whether they’re addressing him or Mr Marley.
 
They are dismissed in the usual manner, with the film running pretty close to the book for a while here, although when Fred turns up a lot of the dialogue is changed and the exchange is shortened. Particularly, Scrooge’s disapproval of Fred having got married is made a bit stronger, probably for reasons to do with things we’re going to see shortly in the Christmas Past section.

As this film seems to have been influenced by the 1935 version,
so it in turn would seem to have influenced the 1970 musical with
this bit of Tim peering into the toyshop window

There’s a rare showing of Scrooge having his meal in a tavern on his way home, and a new bit for the film gives a further demonstration of his miserliness when he calls for more bread, the waiter tells him it’s a halfpenny extra and he dismisses the man with a curt, “No more bread!” as if it were the waiter himself who had suggested it.
 
When Marley turns up, Horden’s performance is more on the sad and mournful side than the urgent and accusing tone which Jacob is often given, although I wouldn’t say that either decision was necessarily right or wrong. The Marley sequence stays very faithful to the book, even going so far as to include the lines about the toothpick which are hardly ever included in any other adaptations.
 
Past:
The Spirit doesn’t quite capture the strange, old-youngness of that described by Scrooge, nor its candle-like qualities, but overall it isn’t a bad attempt at trying to do a fairly faithful Ghost of Christmas Past, but more on the definitely older side.

Initially, this section stays faithful to the scenes as shown in the book, although with some changes and additions which particularly stand out. At the school, when Fan comes to collect Scrooge he tells her that she must live forever as she is the only person who has ever shown him any kindness, which rather seems to lay things on a bit thick with its attempting to foreshadow and make all the more impactful what is to come.
 
The ages of Scrooge and Fan have also been swapped around – we learn from an exchange between the older Scrooge and the Spirit as they watch that Scrooge’s mother died giving birth to him, just as Fan will evidently die giving birth to Fred, which is given as a reason why Scrooge’s father disliked him and why he disliked Fred.
 
We then go back to the book a bit more for the Fezziwigs’ part, at which as usual a version of the Belle character is present. I say ‘a version’ as she has been renamed Alice in this version, and from here we spear off into a lengthy sequence of original events not present in the book, although sometimes present and perhaps even copied in other adaptations.

Probably the most substantial new character created for this film is Jack Warner’s Mr Jorkin, who attempts to buy out Fezziwig, but the latter refuses. Jorkin is portrayed here as the face of then ‘modern’ industrial capitalism, interested only in making money and bringing in ‘machines’. Fezziwig is portrayed as the more paternalistic embodiment of an older era, who sees value in the past ways of doing things even if they may eventually drive him out of business.
 
Scrooge goes to work for Jorkin, who eventually does indeed get hold of Fezziwig’s business. It’s in Jorkin’s employee what Scrooge first meets Marley, and we see that the work together for many year before eventually taking over the company when it is found that Jorkin has embezzled the vast majority of the money from it. We also have a scene of Scrooge at his sister’s bedside as she lays dying, with him leaving the room – making clear his disgust at her husband and baby – too soon, so he doesn’t hear her ask him to look after Fred, which the older Scrooge now sees.
 
During all this, there’s a brief diversion back to the book where we get a version of the original Belle scene as Alice leaves Scrooge. Despite us then later going to the day Marley died, there’s no version of Belle’s other scene showing Alice happily married – although she does return again a little later in the film.

 
It’s in the section dealing with Marley’s death that we meet Mrs Dilber early in this version, made the charlady rather than the laundress here and hurrying to the offices of Scrooge & Marley to tell Scrooge that his partner is dying. Scrooge is unmoved and doesn’t go there until close of business – when Marley seems to be having a deathbed repentance for the way he has lived his life, although none of this means anything to Scrooge.
 
Present:
The Ghost of Christmas Present is shown as in the book, although he doesn’t age through the course of the sequence. There’s an interesting addition here where Scrooge already seems regretful, but despairingly tells the Spirit to go and redeem “some younger, more promising creature,” as he feels that it is already too late for him.

 
For a version which diverts so greatly from the book so often, it’s surprising that it also includes various original moments hardly ever present in other adaptations, and there’s another example of that here as we get a version of the visit to the miners. The Cratchit scene is also present reasonably faithfully as might be more expected, although Bob’s couple of references to “Martha, my dear” in the script here might put a certain section of the post-1960s audience more in mind of The Beatles than of Dickens.
 
The scene at Fred’s Christmas party is fairly short, not including any games so there’s no opportunity for Scrooge to join in with any of them. We also have an original sequence for this film showing what Alice is up to in the present, working with the poor – something which perhaps inspired the makers of the 2001 animated version to have their Belle doing the same.
 
Ignorance & Want are included, before Scrooge is left alone with the mocking, reproachful words of the Spirit ringing in his ears, waiting for his final ghostly visitor.
 
Yet to Come:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is as you’d expect, although with a human hand being the one emerging from its sleeve to point at what Scrooge needs to see. Once again, as he did with the previous ghost, Scrooge insists that he is too old, but he is led along on his journeys nonetheless.

There are three main visions presented to Scrooge here, all of them taken fairly faithfully from the book but interestingly presented in the reverse order of how they appear in the original. So we start with the Cratchits mourning Tim, before we then go on to a pretty much complete version of the Old Joe scene, complete with the undertaker present as well as Mrs Dilber and the laundress – although tweaked, as mentioned, as Mrs Dilber was the laundress in the original.
 
We then have the two businessmen Scrooge spoke to at the very start of the film discussing his death, before the Spirit takes Scrooge to the graveyard and shows him his grave.
 
What’s To-Day:
In a scene pretty clearly inspired by the 1935 version, when Scrooge awakes it’s with Mrs Dilber coming into his rooms, and being very confused and indeed alarmed by the change in him. It’s with her in this version that Scrooge has his “what’s to-day?” exchange, and I must admit that she and Harrison play the whole scene very well, with Mrs Dilber seemingly worried she’s going to be assaulted by the manic Scrooge.

The boy below the window is still present in slightly reduced form here, however, with Scrooge calling down at him to go and buy the turkey – with his authentic original reply of “Walk-er!” also included. This version doesn’t make the change others often do of Scrooge going to see the Cratchits, but we do have a scene of them receiving the turkey and wondering who sent it – with Tim suggesting that he feels it must have been Scrooge.
 
There’s a rather sweet little addition which I do like when Scrooge goes to see Fred. In the book, he paces up and down outside before eventually going to the front door, whereas in this version the hesitation comes after he’s already been admitted by the maid, lingering in the hallway, afraid to make his presence known. The maid – perfectly played by Theresa Derrington in one of only two small film parts she ever had – gives him an encouraging little nod to go in, which is such a tiny thing but one of the film’s nicest moments. It seems I’m not the only one who thinks so, either.

 
It all wraps up with a version of the closing narration, and a well-again Tim running up to his Uncle Scrooge.
 
Review:
I’ve been a little hesitant about including this film on the blog. I was always going to get around to it eventually, of course. My aim is to try and review as many different adaptations of the story as I possibly can, and it’s not as if this one is in any way awful.
 
It’s just that it’s a film I know a lot of people love and hold very dear, but one which I don’t think justifies that adoration. Perhaps it’s all to do with context. Had I seen this film as a child, knowing nothing about it, perhaps I would have enjoyed it far more than I did. But I didn’t actually see it until I was in my late twenties, when I was already a big fan of the Carol, had seen various versions I enjoyed very much, and knew that this had the reputation for being the definitive screen interpretation.
 
Well, I’m sorry to say that in my view I don’t think that’s the case.

Having heard for so long about what a faithful version it was, I was very surprised when I eventually saw it to see just how much it monkeys about with the story. Now, I know that some of you who’ve read my other reviews will say, “But you forgive that in The Muppets or the 1970 musical!” Which is true. But both of those have the defence of being heightened realities of puppetry or musical. And, frankly, both of them still stay closer to the book than Noel Langley does with his screenplay here.
 
I think some of the problem I have with Langley’s changes is a similar reaction to that I had to the 2019 television version – they just seem to make the whole thing more pointlessly miserable. Not that this film is anywhere near as bad as that particular adaptation, I hasten to add. The sections where it sticks to the book are indeed excellent – and Sim in particular is very good.
 
It’s not an awful film by any means whatsoever. It’s just that it does put in a lot of stuff which isn’t present or even hinted-at in the book, and the vast majority of it doesn’t really add anything in particular to the story. You have to credit them for attempting to do some new and different things with a story which was even by then over a century old and incredibly well-known, but
 
But for me, its reputation can’t help but lead to disappointment, especially when you compare it to the 1970, 1999 or Muppet versions. There’s a very fine cast here and there are some very good bits. However, I’m afraid that if you’re looking for a definitive screen version of the Carol – if such a thing is even possible – then this isn’t it. But it is amiable enough, and there are certainly far poorer versions to be had.

In a nutshell:
It doesn’t live up to its reputation. While there are some nice performances in it, there are better adaptations of the Carol out there.
 
Links:
Wikipedia
IMDb

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.

And now, a word from our sponsor...

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

A Christmas Carol - 1959, television

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 27^th 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.

"Hi, I'm Fredric March. You may know me from such films as..."

Cast and crew:

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.

Scrooge waves Marley goodbye!

Past:

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.

A scene from the present, shrouded in fog.

Yet to Come:

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.

"It could be YOU..."

Review:

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.

Links:

IMDb