Thanksgiving? Bah, Humbug!

First published November 23, 2003

By C. W. Oberleitner

With Thanksgiving just two days away, C. W. Oberleitner is busy getting his home ready for the holidays. Which means that Chuck is making a list and checking it twice for all his favorite Christmas films.

This Thursday is Thanksgiving and that can only mean one thing. If you haven’t made all your holiday plans by now it’s way too late. Let’s face it holiday decorations have been up in the malls since the day after Labor Day. At Disneyland it has been snowing nightly to the refrains of White Christmas for four weeks.

The once fanciful idea of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas of having two holidays collide is becoming a reality. These days Halloween, popular as it has become, is just a blip on the celebration meter as we rush headlong into Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza and New Year’s, now more often than not referred to simply as "The Holidays".

Thanksgiving is at serious risk of becoming little more than a brief pause to carbo load before indulging in the first major group activity of "The Holiday" season. I’m speaking of course about the Friday after Thanksgiving, known affectionately among the nation’s retail clerks as Black Friday. The day we engage in the single greatest orgy of spending in our consumer driven society.

It’s the Little Things you Do Together

Thankfully, Thanksgiving is also a time of observing rituals and traditions. For example, around our house we do not turn on the "Holiday" lights before Thanksgiving evening. This, despite the fact that the lights are still up on the house from last Holiday Season, and the one before that. It is also the time of year we stop buying and renting newly released DVDs.

I learned along time ago that movies make great Christmas gifts. Unfortunately so did most of my family and friends. To avoid the need of purging the video storage case or the embarrassment of re-gifting, I stop buying the latest movie releases around Halloween. To be more accurate I actually stop watching the latest releases around this time of year. I still buy newly released DVDs, only now they’re gifts for someone else. And of course thanks to all that packaging there is just no way to give someone a DVD that you’ve already watched without them knowing you’ve opened it.

Even though "The Holidays" are filled with a lot of social get-togethers this still leaves me with a lot of couch time once taken up by re-watching the same films I stood in line for the season before. Like many good Americans I have enough money invested in home theatre equipment to have put at least one child through the private college of his or her choice. And now, it would seem, it’s just going to sit there unused until the day after Christmas when I start watching the DVDs I will receive as gifts. Many, if not all of which, will be duplicates of the same DVDs I will be giving as gifts.

This is where Hollywood comes to the rescue. In an effort to insure that none of us ever forget the true meaning and spirit of "The Holidays", the home video industry has provided us all with a plethora of seasonal stories on video. There are ghost stories, family dramas, children’s stories and even stories of Santa Claus behaving like an axe murderer or defending the children of the world from throngs of invading Martians.

At our house the holiday video season is kicked off Thanksgiving morning with the original 1947, black and white version of Miracle on 34th Street with Maureen O’Hara, Edmund Gwenn and a then 9 year-old Natalie Wood. The story opens in New York with the start of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. I usually plop it into the DVD player right after the conclusion of the current version of what NBC parade hosts Al Roker, Katie Couric and Matt Lauer now refer to as the "Macy’s Day Parade." For me, however, Gwenn as Kris Kringle best sums up what the story is all about when he tells little Susan (Wood),

Faith is believing in something when common sense tells you not to.

Probably the single most well known Christmas movie of all time is Frank Capra’s 1946 masterpiece, It’s A Wonderful Life starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed. For those of you living under a rock for the past fifty-seven years, Stewart plays perennial everyman George Bailey who has come to see his life of devotion to family and friends as a detriment rather than a blessing. In a moment of desperation he wishes he’d never been born and thanks to the assistance of a somewhat befuddled guardian Angel named Clarence, he gets to see what life would have been like had he never lived.

My favorite It’s A Wonderful Life quote does not come from the movie. Instead it comes from ABC TV’s Good Morning America film critic Joel Seigel who summed up my feelings about this film when he said,

I look forward to seeing this film every holiday season. I used to cry during the scene when the whole town of Bedford Falls comes to George’s aid. Now I start to cry as soon as I put the tape in the machine.

Over the years there have been several unsuccessful attempts to remake this film. If remakes of Capra’s holiday classic haven’t been well received by the public the same cannot be said for what truly has to be the granddaddy of all Christmas stories, Charles Dickens nineteenth century classic A Christmas Carol. The story of miserly old Ebenezer Scrooge’s visitation by the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Future and the ultimate redemption of his soul is probably the most filmed story in modern literature.

The Granddaddy of all Christmas Stories

A Christmas Carol, or simply Scrooge as it is also known, is performed annually live on stage in theatres around the world. It has been filmed for theatrical release and produced for television over 200 times. It has been made into a film and film to stage musical. It has been animated several times and the list of actors who have played its lead characters includes some of the greatest names from American and British stage and screen.

One hundred and sixty years after Dickens first sent the nightshirt clad Scrooge out into the Christmas Eve air A Christmas Carol is still going strong. Scrooge, Marley, Bob Cratchit, and company have all taken up residence in the twenty-first century on the Internet. A Google search of Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol produces about 110,000 hits.

Many of those Christmas Carol sites feature debates over everything from the relative merits of the many film and video adaptations to which actor has turned in the all time best performance as Scrooge. Not being one to shy away from an argument I’ll offer my two cents on these subjects as well.

While A Christmas Carol may have been filmed over 200 times there are currently only about a dozen versions widely available on video and DVD. They fall into three basic groups dramatization, musical and animated.

In his 1999 book, "A Christmas Carol and Its Adaptations," author Fred Guida refers to the problem filmmakers have had "dealing with Dickens" over the years. During the golden age of Hollywood studios like MGM produced excellent faithful adaptations of Dickens works such as A Tale of Two Cities and David Copperfield. They, however, stopped short of truly exploring the depths of either the characters or the times they lived in. David Copperfield was produced during the Depression and MGM wisely reasoned that audiences of the day would not enjoy seeing how little day-to-day life seemed to improve over the intervening century.

In the years following World War II filmmakers finally began exploring the darker side of humanity. As reality crept into filmmaking the other half of the dealing with Dickens dilemma arose. A lot of his plots and characters were really dark and twisted and if not properly dealt with they ran the very real risk of turning audiences off.

It was during the Post WWII era that what is widely regarded as the best film adaptation of A Christmas Carol was released. Produced in England in 1951, Renown Pictures’ Scrooge featured Alastair Sim in the title role. So stark and realistic a depiction of Dickens vision of mid Victorian London that I still get chills every time I hear the wind whistling through Scrooge’s drafty old flat.

Alastair Sim is also regarded as the best Ebenzer Scrooge of all time as well. As Guida says in his book,

…one of the screen’s great comic character actors was essentially allowed to be himself. With a wonderfully expressive face and eyes, a rich mellifluous voice, and an almost indescribable penchant for droll wit, irony and eccentricity, Sim was both a unique personality and a fine actor; it is unfortunate that general audiences in America tend to know him only though this film, and perhaps The Belles of St. Trinians. His deadpan response of "Why?" to the charity solicitors’ request to help the poor, or his bewildered reaction when he first sees the Ghost of Christmas Present, are classic Sim. As brilliant as his performance is, however, it never dominates the film. Instead, it is seamlessly integrated into a near perfect distillation of the story.

Scrooge is also the name of if not the most popular rendition of A Christmas Carol what is arguably at least the most expensive and equally well-known version of the story. Leslie Bricusse’s 1970 musical version featured Albert Finney in the title role. Heavily influenced by Lionel Bart’s Oliver, the highly successful Broadway and West End musical version of Oliver Twist, Bricusse and director Ronald Neame forgo the darker more dramatic aspects of the story in favor a lighter more melodramatic libretto generously sprinkled with lavish musical production numbers.

There is also a greater emphasis placed on the comedic elements of the story. As the ghost of Scrooge’s long dead business partner, Jacob Marley, Alec Guinness turns in a wonderfully comic performance. Unlike Alastair Sim, who at the age of 51 did not use makeup to portray the elder Scrooge, Finney, who was just 33 at the time of shooting, had to undergo a substantial physical transformation to bring Dickens parsimonious penny pincher to life. This did, however, allow Finney to portray the youthful Scrooge with little difficulty.

While there is still debate about the relative merits of the 1970 Scrooge, it takes the honor for being the best musical version—to date—of A Christmas Carol. And, Albert Finney while not the best Scrooge ever, wins top honors for the best morning-after reformation performance. No doubt aided by the fact that underneath the old man singing and dancing his way around London that Christmas morning was a spry thirty something actor.

While popular with live action filmmakers, A Christmas Carol hasn’t fared nearly as well as an animated production. The closest it has ever come to being a major animation studio production is Walt Disney Pictures 1983, Mickey’s Christmas Carol. In this telling of the tale Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy and a host of classic Disney characters all take on the roles of Dickens classic characters. Guess who Scrooge McDuck plays.

Disney did take another stab at live action Christmas Carol during their brief partnership with the Jim Henson Company. A Muppet Christmas Carol featured Michael Cane as Scrooge, The Great Gonzo as Charles Dickens, Kermit as Bob Cratchit and in an inspired bit of casting Miss Piggy as Mrs. Cratchit.

At only twenty-five minutes and thirty seconds in length Mickey’s Christmas Carol, not surprisingly, does a wonderfully heart warming job of capturing the essence of Dickens original story. It is not, however, my first choice for best animated version of A Christmas Carol. That honor belongs to 1962’s, made for NBC TV animated special, Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol. This telling of the tale has the late Jim Backus’ alter ego, Quincy Magoo, literally playing the part of Ebenezer Scrooge.

Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol opens with the nearsighted Magoo wrecking havoc in New York traffic as he makes his way to the theatre where he is about to play the part of Scrooge in a Broadway production. From there it segues into Dickens well-known Christmas ghost story. In addition to being the best, animated version of A Christmas Carol, the Magoo version is also one of the best musical versions of the story. The Magoo Carol features songs and lyrics by composer Jule Styne and lyricist Bob Merrill. Prior to scoring Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol the pair had just completed work on a little Broadway show called, Funny Girl.

The animation in Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol isn’t anything to write home about. Remember it was circa 1960s made for TV animation. In addition to Jim Backus’ work as Mr. Magoo, however, the film also features an exceptional cast of voice actors. Morey Amsterdam, probably best remembered from The Dick Van Dyke Show, Jack Cassidy, June Foray, Royal Dano and Paul Frees all give voice to a host of characters.

Despite the abundance of Scrooge stories for audiences to choose from entertainment companies still seem willing to plumb the depths of this most timeless of all ghost stories. A friend of mine likes to say the reason for this is that producers love to believe in the inevitable redemption of people like themselves. In 1984, CBS television teamed up with actor George C. Scott to produce a well-received version of Carol.

Today actor Patrick Stewart is probably the best known and most well respected Scrooge on the planet. A life long fan of Dickens’ Christmas fable he began performing the entire story and cast of thirty characters in a tour de force one-man show in 1984. Since that time he has reprised the production many times throughout the country and won numerous awards for both his live performances and audio recording of the story.

In 1999, Stewart joined forces with Time Warner cable channel, TNT, to bring Ebenezer Scrooge to life on film one more time. While very entertaining it’s a bit stylized and a touch overwrought. The production suffers most from the fact that unlike the stage version it is based upon, Stewart is not permitted to play all thirty some odd parts.

There are of course lots of other holiday films both old and new to snuggle up with the family and enjoy during the coming weeks. In 1954 Paramount spent over seven million dollars crafting a holiday movie around one climatic, super saturated Technicolor production number, White Christmas. Disney has been busy trying to build a holiday franchise around former tool man Tim Allen with its pair of Santa "Clause" movies. And this year New Line Cinema, not content to rest on its Hobbits, teamed up with former Saturday Night Live comic Will Ferrell to bring us Elf.

Between the mass merchandising that seems to begin earlier every year and so many holiday films to choose from it really does seem that Christmas can last all year. Oy vey.

C’ya real soon!