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

The Lost Carols - Christmas Night

Title:
Christmas Night
 
Format:
Live television ballet performance
 
Country:
UK
 
Production company:
BBC Television
 
Year:
1946 (broadcast live on the BBC Television Service at 9pm on December 25^th that year)
 
Length:
60 minutes
 
Setting:
Victorian
 
Background:
Ten years after what ought to have been the very first television adaptation of A Christmas Carol in Britain – and, indeed, the world – had failed to happen due to the illness of its star, the BBC Television Service finally got in on the act with the debut of the Carol on British television. Although in the meantime, there had been versions broadcast by the fledgling commercial television operations in the United States.
 
The BBC Television Service had been shut down for the duration of the Second World War in September 1939, and did not resume until a year after the conflict had finished, in the summer of 1946. This, then, was British television’s first post-war Christmas, and it had not yet come to dominate the day in the UK as it would through the second half of the 20^th century. For one thing, the number of people who had sets was numbered in no more than the tens of thousands at the very, very most.
 
For another, the BBC’s broadcasts were still limited to anyone within range of the transmitter above their Alexandra Palace studios – which basically meant London and the surrounding counties, although in practice in favourable weather conditions the service could be picked up a great deal further away. For example, when going through the files related to the television coverage of the 1948 Olympic Games at the BBC’s Written Archives Centre when I was making a documentary about the football commentator Jimmy Jewell, I found a mention of their “viewer in the Channel Islands” having enjoyed the coverage of the opening ceremony!
 
Whether said viewer had a set by this point and was able to watch Christmas Night is almost certainly lost to history, of course. Although one day I would like to try and organise a visit to the WAC to see what if any files they hold on some of these early Carol adaptations!
 
The personnel and technology of the BBC Television Service from Alexandra Palace in 1946 were almost identical to the service which had been suspended seven years earlier. The vast majority of programmes were broadcast live, and although there was now a BBC Film Unit, they did not concern themselves with fiction or entertainment as such. Videotape technology did not yet exist, and film recordings of studio output were not yet in operation, so the entire cast and crew of Christmas Night came in to produce the thing live at Alexandra Palace on the day itself.

Cast and crew:
There’s some heavy musical firepower in operation here, as the music for Christmas Night was by the esteemed English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams – The Lark Ascending and all that. Whether or not the music was actually for this production, however, I’m not so sure. Vaughan Williams had written for the BBC recently when this was broadcast, having composed a piece called Thanksgiving for Victory for them to mark the end of the Second World War.
 
However, he’d also written a “masque” called On Christmas Night twenty years earlier, in 1926, apparently as an American commission. Like the BBC Television Christmas Night, this was based on A Christmas Carol – or “freely adapted” from it – and evidently combined singing, dancing and mime, so it seems very likely, in fact I would say almost certain, that the 1946 television piece was based on it.
 
The producer was Philip Bate, a Scottish-born musicologist of English parentage, who’d been working as a studio manager and then a producer for BBC radio since the mid-1930s. In these early days of BBC Television, ‘producer’ combined what would now understood to be the separate roles of both producer and director, and in these very early days frequently the scriptwriter too, so Bate would have been very much the driving force behind the whole production.
 
Bate had started making programmes for television from Alexandra Palace in 1938, frequently about music in a more educational or general interest capacity rather than musical productions as such. However, he’d also begun to produce concerts and ballets and other such musical specials, and then returned after the break, even producing a section of the special re-opening programme in June 1946.
 
The only cast member named by the BBC’s Radio Times listings magazine at the time was Hubert Foss, who gets a ‘story told by’ credit. Presumably as some form of narrator, although whether he appeared in-vision or only in voiceover I cannot say. I cannot find a record of an actor named Hubert Foss, so I assume he is the Hubert J. Foss who was a journalist and Musical Editor of the Oxford University Press. This Foss had been a regular broadcaster on music programmes for BBC radio and was also an expert on Vaughan Williams, so it seems almost entirely certain that this was he.
 
Underdone Potato:
The character descriptions in the Radio Times billing certainly match up with the titles of the individual pieces from Vaughan Williams’s 1926 On Christmas Night, so we can get some clues as to the content.
 
We know that after some sort of introductory section, some of the music of which draws from existing Christmas carols such as God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, Jacob Marley’s ghost puts in an appearance.
 
I’m confident in saying that the setting of the whole thing is or was Victorian, as one of the musical pieces in Vaughan Williams’s 1926 work is called Victorian Drawing Room, and the Radio Times article previewing BBC Television’s Christmas programmes refers to “a flavour of Dickens” (I know that can just about mean Georgian or… erm… Williamian or whatever, but something Dickensian would commonly be understood to be mid-Victorian).

 
Past:
As with several silent film versions of the story, it does not appear that there are three different spirits in this version, but instead one combined “Spirit of Christmas” – exactly the same name that this combined ghost was given in the 1910 silent film. I wonder if Vaughan Williams had seen it…?
 
The Radio Times stated that “a highlight of the programmes is expected to be a musical version of Mrs Fezziwig’s ball,” so it would seem that a version of this part of the book was something of a centrepiece. Which would make sense in a production focused on music and dancing, as this is the part of the story where it most naturally occurs.
 
Assuming the “Mrs” isn’t simply a typographical error, than the focus on Mrs rather than Mr Fezziwig would seem to be a development of this television version – the track names (as I’ve been desperately trying to avoid calling them!) of Vaughan Williams’s work just use the more generic ‘Fezziwig’ without specifying Mr or Mrs. The Fezziwig section does take up a good third of the musical runtime, however, so it does seem to have been a major focus. It’s pleasing to see that a version of Roger de Coverley makes an appearance, as specified by Dickens.
 
Present:
There are sections of the music titled Bob Cratchit’s Christmas Party and Bob Cratchit’s Toast, so it seems as if there was some sort of version of the Cratchit ‘Christmas Present’ scene, but more than that I cannot tell you.
 
Yet to Come:
The Cratchit music is towards the end and appears to be immediately followed by the finale, so I’m unsure as to whether there was a ‘Yet to Come’ section in this version.
 
What’s To-Day:
It all seems to end with a version of the English folk dance Black Nag and then Procession of the Nativity, so perhaps had a more overtly Christian conclusion than elsewhere.
 
Review:
I only wish I could tell you more! I can listen to versions of the music, of course, which I suppose is more than can be said for other lost versions. It certainly sounds appropriately festive, and you can see – or rather, hear – why it seemed like a suitable candidate for television, as it does have a lot of the feel of what we might now regard a Christmas film soundtrack. I like the way Vaughan Williams works in bits and pieces from various existing carols and other Christmas music.
 
Sadly, I have so far been unable to find any contemporary reviews of the production.
 
In a nutshell:
Not so much ‘lost’ as aired live once and never recorded, but it has its place in history as British television’s very first version of A Christmas Carol.
 
Links:
BBC Genome
British Film Institute

The Lost Carols - Scrooge, 1936, television

Title:

Scrooge
 
Format:
Scheduled but never broadcast live performed reading for television
 
Country:
UK
 
Production company:
BBC Television
 
Year:
1936 – it was due to be broadcast live on the BBC Television service twice, both on December 24^th that year
 
Length:
Somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes, approximately
 
Setting:
Unknown, but probably Victorian

 
Background:
This is a very lost Carol. On Wikipedia – until I removed it after researching this article – it used to be listed as the earliest ever television version of the Carol. However, while I was putting together this piece I discovered that, sadly, that’s not the case. It was certainly billed in the listings. But due to the illness of its star, in the event it never actually happened.

Following various experimental broadcasts throughout the early 1930s, the BBC had begun the world’s first regular television service in November 1936. It was not yet the popular mass medium it would become – sets were an expensive luxury, and the BBC had only a single transmitter at their Alexandra Palace studios in London. Thus, the signals were available only to those in London and the surrounding area, although in certain conditions they could be picked up much further afield.
 
The BBC Television Service broadcast for only a few hours a day, and although there were some demonstration and bought-in films, almost all of its output was shown live. This consisted of assorted talks, musical and variety programmes, dramas and readings. One oddity was that there were two competing technical standards for television in use at the time – from the Baird and Marconi companies.
 
The BBC had agreed to start its service using an alternation of the two systems – but the receiving sets were not compatible, so if you only had a set of a certain type, for the first few months of the BBC’s service you could only watch programmes every other week. Christmas week in 1936 fell under the Marconi system, which was regarded as the superior and the Baird system was eventually abandoned.

 
This was to have been a live performance broadcast twice on Christmas Eve, Thursday the 24^th of December 1936, under the title Scrooge. It went out once just after 3pm, and again just after 9pm. I say ‘just after’ as its billing in the BBC’s Radio Times listings magazine is for “Programme Summary, followed by Scrooge,” so it’s difficult to say precisely at what time it would have started or how long it might have been.
 
I have found no information about what, if anything, was broadcast instead of Scrooge that Christmas Eve. It’s possible that a script or other information about the abandoned 1936 version may survive at the BBC’s wonderful Written Archives Centre in Caversham. But until such time as I can perhaps make some enquiries there, it’s difficult to say much more.
 
Cast and crew:
This seems to have been due to be a one-man performance from Bransby Williams, a man with a strong connection to both Dickens in general and the character of Scrooge in particular. Eight years before this he’d starred in another lost Carol, the 1928 short film Scrooge, which is believed to have been the first sound version.

Excerpt from the Yorkshire Observer,
24th December 1936

 
Williams had been born only two months after Dickens’s death, in 1870. He’d been particularly associated with the author’s characters on stage for many years, specialising in such productions as an actor-manager with his own company. Like Seymour Hicks before him, he’d made a particular success of Scrooge in the theatre, having played the part in various productions since 1898, when he gave a one-man monologue version as part of the Christmas bill at the London Pavilion. The one-man show of Scrooge was, then, clearly something he was well-practised at by 1936!
 
Williams had also made various recorded versions of a dramatic readings and performances from the book, the first released as early as 1905. He continued making various recordings as Scrooge for over forty years, with the final one being released on the Decca label in 1948. He’d also played Scrooge for the BBC on the radio on more than one occasion, since at least 1932.
 
Williams did eventually get to play Scrooge for BBC Television in its first full-cast version of the Carol in 1950. Then in 1952, some sixteen years late, he did eventually get to give his one-man version, in a solo performance of “scenes from A Christmas Carol”. This 1952 version may have not been dissimilar to what was due to have been broadcast in 1936, as it’s in a not much longer slot of 20 minutes. That 1952 performance actually survives as a film recording of the live broadcast, and was repeated by the BBC in 1953, 1955 and 1960, but alas I currently have no way of watching it.
 
While researching this piece, I found an article Williams wrote which was published in the Larne Times on Boxing Day 1936 – just two days after he had been due to give television its first Scrooge. Writing about his love of Dickens and the importance the author and particularly A Christmas Carol held for him, Williams wrote that:
 
“If Dickens had written no other story than the Christmas Carol – and be it remembered he wrote twenty-four full-sized stories, hundreds of short ones and hundreds of miscellaneous articles – if he had written no other it is possible his name would be just as famous. He would still have been the man who was Christmas.”
 
This particularly struck me as I wrote something similar in my introductory essay in this blog, about why I love the story so much. Not a particularly original thought, I grant you, but nice to know that someone so important to the performed history of the Carol as Williams felt the same way.
 
In a nutshell:
It never happened.
 
Links:
BBC Genome

The Lost Carols - The Right to Be Happy

Title:
The Right to Be Happy (also released as Scrooge the Skinflint in the UK)
 
Format:
Silent film
 
Country:
United States
 
Production company:
Bluebird Photo Plays
 
Year:
1916 (released in the USA on December 25^th that year)
 
Length:
50 minutes (approximately)
 
Setting:
Not definitely known, but almost certainly Victorian

Background:
Another version of the Carol which does not appear to have survived, which is a great shame as it seems to have been by far and away the longest version made during the silent era – a five-reeler, which meant it probably ran or at least 50 minutes.
 
The production company, Bluebird Photo Plays, may not be a familiar name today, but they were actually a subsidiary of one of the biggest film companies of all time, and one which still exists – Universal. The brand was apparently developed by Universal to promote films which didn’t have big star names, but were being sold on the strength or fame of the story – so it makes sense that they might choose A Christmas Carol for adaptation.
 
Bluebird’s publicity department came up with a novel idea for promoting The Right to Be Happy, suggesting in an article in The Motion Picture Weekly that cinemas showing the film could perhaps hire someone to dress up as Marley’s ghost in a sheet, a white-painted face and rattling chains, to try and entice people in! Whether anybody took them up on this suggestion is sadly unknown.

Rupert Julian as Scrooge

 
Cast and crew:
As was not uncommon in the silent era, the star was also the director – in this case, Rupert Julian, a New Zealander who had moved to America in 1911. He initially worked on the stage in New York, before moving into films from 1915 and evidently becoming something of a star after another film he both directed and took the lead in, The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin, became a hit for Universal in 1918.
 
Of the supporting cast, perhaps the most interesting name is that of Lydia Yeamans Titus as Mrs Fezziwig. A fellow antipodean of Julian’s, having been born in Australia, she became a music hall star on the stages of the UK, the US, Australia and New Zealand, and became particularly associated with the song Sally in Our Alley. She’d evidently been a favourite of King Edward VII’s on the London stage, and had moved into films from 1911 in New York.
 
Showing some of the multi-talented abilities which seem to have been common in silent film, Belle actress Francelia Billington was evidently also an accomplished camera operator – although I don’t know whether she performed any such duties on this particular production.
 
The “scenario” was written by one Elliott J. Clawson, who later went on to receive four nominations for screenwriting Oscars once such things were invented. Clawson wrote over 80 films, including several other collaborations with Rupert Julian.

Harry Carter as Marley

Summaries (or lack thereof):
There is a way of telling you at least something of the story as presented in this film… But unfortunately, for the time being at least I don’t have any access to it.
 
As with the lost 1908 version, although the film itself no longer exists we can get at least an impression of it from a detailed summary printed at the time of its release. On this occasion, the summary was printed in The Moving Picture Weekly, which was Universal’s own publicity magazine. Archive.org does have many issues of this available from that time… But sadly, not volume three, number 20, which was the issue in which the summary for The Right to Be Happy was printed.
 
So I’m afraid I’m a bit stumped. I have tried other ways of tracking down any sort of synopsis, but to no avail. For the time being at least, then, all I can do is fall back on some of the verdicts of contemporary reviewers, to at least give us some idea of how it was received…

Review:
Reviewing The Right to Be Happy just ahead of its Christmas Day release in 1916, the independent film magazine The Moving Picture World was very positive, writing that: “Bluebird has been careful to impart the Dickens atmosphere to the subject, portraying the characters with faithfulness and showing in camera-trickery the adventures of Old Scrooge as he made his personally conducted flights with the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Future, with the spirit of Jacob Marley as the superintendent of spiritual transportation.”
 
In their own publicity magazine The Moving Picture Weekly, Universal had been very keen to point out to exhibitors the film’s message didn’t just have to be for Christmas, but would make suitable fare all the year round. I put this down to mere PR puffery, but interestingly The Moving Picture World seemed to agree with this, saying: “There will be an all-year interest in The Right to Be Happy, as the lesson of benevolence A Christmas Carol presents has no particular season, and, furthermore, the devotees of Charles Dickens are numbered by the hundreds in every sizeable community.”
 
Over in the UK, the film doesn’t seem to have made its debut until 1917, which makes sense if it didn’t come out in the USA until Christmas Day itself in 1916. It was already being shown in Britain by October 1917, however, with an edition of the Falkirk Herald that month praising its, “fine art, distinctiveness, and the splendid acting of all the charaters.”
 
The Gloucestershire Echo’s review of November 1917 commends the film’s “wonderful photography,” which I wonder whether they mean special effects? They also add that, “The acting of the different characters is splendid, and the picture itself contains all the essential parts of the story.”
 
The Preston Herald’s review the following month was equally positive, describing Julian as having “admirably portrayed” the leading role, and adding that: “Lovers of Dickens will have a treat in store next week, and to see this film will be like spending an hour with old friends.”

In a nutshell:
Impossible, for sadly obvious reasons, to give a real verdict on the film – a great loss to cultural histories of the Carol, given its status as the longest silent version.
 
Links:
Wikipedia
IMDb

The Lost Carols - 1908

Something a little bit different for the blog today: a look at an adaptation which no longer exists. I will be scattering a few of these through the month this year, as an experiment. Do let me know what you think!

 

Title:
A Christmas Carol (Possibly – it’s also named as just Christmas Carol and The Christmas Carol in different magazine pieces from the time)
 
Format:
Short silent film
 
Country:
USA
 
Production company:
Essanay Film Manufacturing Company
 
Year:
1908 – released in the US on December 9^th that year
 
Length:
15 minutes
 
Setting:

Uncertain, but seemingly Victorian
 
Background:
This is a first for this blog – looking at a version of A Christmas Carol which is no longer available to watch, with no known surviving copy in existence. This obviously means that this entry can’t work in quite the same way as most of the others, as I’m not qualified to give my own personal view on something I haven’t seen – and sadly can never see. But there is enough material from the time of the film’s release to give at least some idea of it, and how it was received.
 
It’s a notable production for being – as far as is known – the very first American screen adaptation of the story, with the US of course having gone on to be one of the two mainstays of Carol productions ever since. The company which made it, Essanay, was actually quite the outfit for firsts – they also made the first known American Sherlock Holmes film; the first film about Jesse James; and their 1909 comedy Mr Flip allegedly contains the first known “pie in the face” slapstick gag ever committed to film. They also produced some early cartoons, and are probably best-known today for their Charlie Chaplin films, signing the star in 1914 – although he left after a year.
 
They were initially based in Chicago, which is where this version of A Christmas Carol was made. Their studio building in the city’s Uptown area still survives as a local landmark, although the company itself is long gone – after Chaplin’s departure in 1915 they merged with other studios and eventually disappeared in the 1920s.
 
Cast and crew:
Tom Ricketts, who stars as Scrooge, was an important figure in early 20^th century American cinema, although perhaps more as a director than an actor. Ricketts was British by birth, having been born in Greenwich in 1853 – a mere ten years after the Carol’s original publication. At the age of 17 – so 1870, the same years as Dickens’s death – Ricketts had emigrated to the United States, where he took up acting and directing for the theatre.
 
He moved into film with Essanay soon after their founding, and following the Carol he also starred in another Dickens adaptation for them, 1909’s The Old Curiosity Shop. He then moved more into directing and co-founded his own company, Nestor Films, working on some of the first motion pictures to be made in Hollywood. His 1912 film The Dawn of Netta is credited with being the first film ever to have distributed by Universal. In the 20s and 30s he returned to the other side of the cameras as a character actor, and was still appearing in films into his mid-80s, including further Dickens work with A Tale of Two Cities in 1935.
 
Other cast and production credits for the film appear to be difficult to readily come by. But according to a summary of Ricketts’ career published in an edition of the Kinematograph Weekly at the time of that A Tale of Two Cities appearance in 1935, Ricketts also directed A Christmas Carol.
 
Underdone Potato:
Obviously, as mentioned, there is no surviving copy of the film known to exist. However, an edition of The Moving Picture World magazine from the time of the film’s release (thanks to Archive.org for making it available) contains a fairly detailed summary, which gives the impression that the adaptation departed somewhat from the story was written by Dickens – perhaps not surprisingly, when it had to be compressed into such a short running time.
 
Scrooge evidently encounters an unidentified “spirit” early on, right at the beginning of the film, when he’s showing how mean and nasty he is by striking a beggar on the street. The beggar, however, also appears to be a ghostly apparition, and Scrooge is warned by the other nameless spirit that he will see the beggar again that night.
 
From what the synopsis says, it seems that Fred actually works for Scrooge in this version, and is waiting at the office when Scrooge arrives – along with Bob, Tiny Tim and Fred’s fiancée rather than wife. When Fred announces that he is to be married, Scrooge actually kisses the bride-to-be, before remembering he’s supposed to be a miserable old bastard, chasing them all out of the office and telling them they can’t have the day off for Christmas.
 
Past:
In common with the short, silent versions of 1901, 1910 and 1913, one way in which this adaptation compresses the story is by doing away with the separate ghosts and having a single spirit show Scrooge all that he needs to see. Unlike the 1901 and 1913 versions, however, this isn’t Marley, but the unnamed Spirit who Scrooge had already encountered earlier.
 
This Spirit doesn’t appear to Scrooge at his home at first but leads him there, also showing him children who run away from the old miser and the beggar who he’d seen earlier on. According to a review of the film in another edition of The Moving Picture World, “The scene where the little girl s the only one who will love the old man is touching and brought the tears to more than one pair of eyes in the audience.” This seems likely to have been the point in the film where that moment took place, although I can’t say for certain. Either way, it’s certainly not a moment which comes from Dickens.
 
Once at home, he is shown a vision of Marley, with the beggar from earlier transforming into Jacob when Scrooge attempts to strike him for warming himself by his fire.
 
Also in common with other silent versions of the story, the visions here don’t so much seem to be depicted as Scrooge being immersed in the experience of being back in time, but rather being shown them as if he were watching a film himself, projected into his rooms. The film appears to come slightly more back towards the original here, with scenes of Scrooge’s childhood and his sweetheart leaving him. Scrooge is so distraught he throws himself to the floor, but the Spirit allows him no rest and commands him to follow it out into the streets again.
 
Present:
Here, it seems, Scrooge is now within the visions rather than simply watching them, as he is shown the Cratchits – or ‘Cratchetts’ in the magazine synopsis, which I don’t know whether or not is a spelling which the film actually used – celebrating Christmas Day. It appears that Scrooge is actually there, rather than merely seeing a vision – he “showers them with money,” and then does the same to Fred and his friends when taken to their Christmas party, before promising that he is now a changed man.
 
Yet to Come:
Um… There isn’t any depiction of Christmas Yet to Come. At least, not according to The Moving Picture World. Scrooge is already fully-done by the end of the Christmas Present scenes.
 
What’s To-Day:
Scrooge is taken back to his office, where he “falls upon his knees in prayer”. The following day he then invites everyone over to his place for a slap-up Christmas dinner.
 
Review:
Obviously it’s very difficult to give a verdict on a film you haven’t actually seen. Not to mention rather unfair to do so. But from the description given at the time, it’s hard to imagine this being a version that I would have particularly enjoyed. Even just placing it in context, comparing it to the other silent versions, it seems to mess around with the story quite a bit more, and to miss out one entire section of the visions seems fairly extraordinary. I mean, there are other versions where Yet to Come is given short shrift – the 1913 version, for example, just has him shown his grave and that’s it. But not do to it at all seems deeply remiss, given that the whole ‘past, present and future’ trio is surely one of the best-known elements of the story.
 
However, The Moving Picture World were certainly very keen on it, with their reviewer stating that:
 
“It is impossible to praise this film too highly. It reproduces the story as closely as it is possible to do in a film and the technical excellence of the work cannot be questioned. The photography, the staging and the acting are all of the best, and the story told is always impressive… Such films cannot be too highly commended. They are a welcome relief from the riot of bloodshed which has marred he moving picture shows of New York and other cities for too long. Even though it costs a fortune almost to prepare such a film, it is quite likely that the public will patronize it sufficiently to make good the extraordinary outlay.”
 
In a nutshell:
From the synopsis, this sounds weaker and less faithful than most of the other silent versions. But it’s still a shame that it no longer seems to exist to allow us to judge for ourselves.
 
Links:
Wikipedia
IMDb