By Nathan Stone
Movies have had a parasitic relationship to literature from practically the film medium’s beginning. George Méliès took A Trip to the Moon with Jules Verne in 1902. Edison created a Frankenstein in 1910. Lon Chaney was The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1923. Some stories and characters have been put on screen so many times that they now seem more at home on screen than off. Sherlock Holmes only made 60 appearances in Conan Doyle’s lifetime but has appeared on screen more than 25,000 times. Similarly, the most famous ghost story in the western world, Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, has had 135 adaptations. It has produced classics, animated takes, musicals, and modernizations. When a nineteenth-century story can be turned into Scrooge’s Rock n’ Roll Christmas, you know it has transcended itself.
With so many versions, people have been able to stake out favorites for years. Those with a penchant for Hollywood’s Golden Age will gravitate to Alister Sims or Reginald Owen; Gen Xers to Mickey Mouse; Millennials to Kermit the Frog; fans of Star Trek and Frasier to Kelsey Grammer and—whatever Patrick Stewart decided to do.
Based on its pedigree, few would automatically choose a made-for-TV eighties version as the definitive adaptation. By 1984, television was in an upheaval. The golden age—which we can say started in 1949 with The Lone Ranger and peaked in the mid sixties with The Wild, Wild West, Star Trek, Mission: Impossible, The Prisoner—was a memory. The three kings (TV networks CBS, NBC, and ABC) were toppling from their thrones. Cable allowed more networks to flower—meaning more competition, where rinky-dink startups like CNN or Fox could rise to the top, leaving the three old nets eating dust. The cancellation of one show was no longer a minor annoyance which could be patched with another. A stinker would prod audiences to roam. If they found another show on a rival network, there was no guarantee those viewers could be enticed back. And there were many cancellations. Pink Lady, Manimal, Misfits of Science, Flamingo Road, Midland Heights, Ace Crawford, Automan, Beyond Westworld… all lasted just one season if they were lucky. Many saw only three or five episodes aired before the entire concept was scrapped. The networks needed a buoy and they turned to the TV movie for salvation.
It would be romantic to see the TV movie as one of those flashes of inspiration born of necessity but the concept and reality was already twenty years old in 1984. The first TV movie is generally acknowledged to be 1964’s See How They Run. Others quickly followed: between 1964 and 1969, thirty-eight TV movies were broadcasted. Studios saw several advantages to this new genre. TV movies could double as pilots for potential shows. They could be theatrically released overseas. When a studio remade a theatrical film as a TV movie (Universal was a master of this trick), the original costumes, sets, and scripts could be recycled.
On top of these factors, TV movies could make money. Dan Curtis’ The Night Stalker was the most watched and highest rated TV movie to date when it aired in 1972. Even more startling, 1979’s Elvis drew in bigger audiences than Gone with the Wind, airing at the same time. In the chaos of the eighties, the TV movie revealed another advantage—filler. TV movies could be substituted for a canceled show until a replacement show was slotted in. It was in this environment that CBS commissioned its own adaptation of A Christmas Carol.
On paper, the production looked innocuous at best. Director Clive Donner had been part of the British New Wave but had fallen on hard times. Bright spots like 1982’s The Scarlet Pimpernel (another TV movie) aside, Donner by this time was mostly making schlock like Old Dracula and The Nude Bomb—itself a manifestation of another trend: the TV show revival, in this case, Get Smart. The production’s star wasn’t in much better professional shape. George C. Scott was a well-known, Academy Award winning actor, but the glory days of Dr. Strangelove and Patton were receding and he now found himself the only American actor in what was otherwise a thoroughly British production. But the stars aligned and a veritable Christmas classic was created.
Donner deserves the lion’s share of the credit for several reasons. First, his decision to film not only in Shepperton Studios but in historic Shrewsbury not only prevented the movie from being stagey, but allowed many locals (including town crier Martin Wood) to be part of the cast, giving the movie authenticity. Second, Donner and screenwriter Roger O. Hirson made a conscious effort to be faithful to the little details. Marley’s anger causes Scrooge to fall to his knees in terror. The Ghost of Christmas Past has its cap. Scrooge reminisces on his childhood storybooks (“dear old honest Ali Baba; and the sultan’s groom turned upside down by the genie”). The feast surrounding the Ghost of Christmas Present when he first appears and his torch. The visit to Belle’s family. None make a crucial difference in the overall movie, but each makes the final product richer. Compare Marley’s visit in Donner’s adaptation to Patrick Stewart’s and you’ll see the difference. Third, following in another Donner’s footsteps, the supporting cast was filled by a venerable list of venerable actors: David Warner, Susannah York, Michael Gough, Edward Woodward, Frank Finley, and Nigel Davenport. Their participation allowed characters that were only in a scene or so in the book to leave a lasting impact (Gough and Mark Quarmby as Mssrs Poole and Hacking are cases in point).
But if there is one element that makes this Christmas Carol stand out, it is Scott. True, he is not the lean, dried out miserly husk that is now the de facto look of Scrooge. Even at 57, Scott is solid and muscular. His Scrooge, in fact, bears more than a slight resemblance to his General Patton. Both are men of will who can dominate a setting with a look, a few well chosen words and a tone. This, in large part, has to do with how Scott chose to play the character. Rather than go for the cliched “stingiest man in town” take, Scott, by his own admission, played Scrooge as the loneliest man in the world, the key to his entire performance.
Scott’s Scrooge is the first Scrooge on film who is a three-dimensional human being. He’s lonely, not because of his greed, but his greed is caused by his loneliness which comes because “his father holds him a grudge” (taking a page from the 1951 version, screenwriter Hirson has this parental hatred stem from Ebeneezer’s mother dying during his childbirth). And while it is never explicitly spelled out, it is clear that this lack of parental love causes Ebeneezer to see himself as lacking. He has to prove himself worthy of other’s love (when his fellow Fezziwig apprentice, Dick, tells Ebeneezer that Belle is too good for him, Scrooge parries with, “One day, when I’ve made my fortune… then I’ll deserve her.”) Rather than shock him back to humanity, Belle rejecting him because “the thought of money engrosses you” teaches this Scrooge that people cannot be trusted or relied on. They will either hate you from the outset or betray you sooner or later, even if all you have done is work hard to make life better for your loved ones. With no father, no sister, and no Belle, Scrooge retreats to profit. Cash in hand is the one thing that cannot disappoint because it is simply a tool that he can control and use to control others, minimizing the risk of betrayal.
If Scott’s performance and Hirson’s script had left it at that, it would be fascinating. But Scott takes his Scrooge a step further. To lie to himself that his choices have made him the world’s loneliest man, Scott’s Scrooge becomes a zealot missionary—not for gross profit but against what he sees as the hypocrisy of the world. If everyone is a rattlesnake, waiting to betray his fellow man, then the Christmas emphasis of goodwill and generosity is the biggest con ever put over. In Scrooge’s mind, they are and therefore it is; Christmas is first rate “humbug” and Scrooge is the only one who can see it. He is the reverse John the Baptist, calling people to open their eyes, see the cruel world for what it is and act accordingly. Anyone who refuses is an “idiot” who deserves “to be boiled in his own pudding,” i.e. eaten alive by the world, an idea that tickles Scrooge’s dark humor. The rest of the world may pity him or hate him, but he is laughing at the rest of the world. Genuine humor gone sour? Or another deflection to hide his loneliness?
And because he is the Baptist of the cruel world, Scott’s Scrooge is not easily converted. Contra the book, where Scrooge’s reclamation begins immediately after the Ghost of Christmas Past leaves, Scott’s Scrooge holds on. He argues with the spirits, justifies himself, looks for loopholes to absolve himself and restore his outlook. Only towards the end of the Ghost of Christmas Present’s visit, do Scrooge’s defenses begin to totter, forcing him to ask the weak, empty question, “What does this have to do with me?” We are simultaneously incredulous that Scrooge is trying to justify himself to the supernatural and secretly glad that he doesn’t cave at the first push. Scrooge is not a cowardly simp impossible to respect; he’s a strong man gone wrong, whose strength needs to be recalibrated toward the light. This makes this Scrooge the most repulsive and the most sympathetic, because he is the most like us. This also means he can be the most changed. When Scott jumps onto his bed in joy at the end, he isn’t just a man who’s been taught to tip big and give large, anonymous donations to charities. He’s a man who has been given an entire new outlook on life to replace the vampiric one which had sucked the life out of him.
CBS must have known that they had something special since the suits opened their wallets and gave A Christmas Carol a theatrical release in Britain. It was still a TV movie in the states (generosity has its limits) but was given the most cinematic broadcast possible, with IBM the only sponsor, cutting down commercials to only five slots (almost dividing the movie into five staves). The critics praised it, audiences loved it. Scott was nominated for a special Emmy. The British cast, professionals and amateurs, cited it as a highlight (both for the work and for the fact that Scott brought the first Trivial Pursuit game to England). While other TV movies fade or become relics known only to a small circle of enthusiasts, this version remains one of the proofs that, as Tiny Tim observes, God does bless us, everyone.
Cover Photo by Pexels Free Photos