Mainlining Christmas

There were numerous live adaptations of A Christmas Carol made in the '40s and '50s, the majority of which were either lost or weren't notable enough to warrant a release. The Stingiest Man in Town seems to have been one of the better-regarded examples, and even that wasn't entirely exempt from being discarded. Until a black and white copy was found in the home of an Alcoa executive in 2011, it was believed lost. Since it's kind of miraculous any version exists, I won't complain too much about not being able to watch it in the original color. Let's back up. The Alcoa Hour was an anthology series sponsored by Alcoa, an aluminum company that's still around. This is the same anthology responsible for the 1955 version of Amahl and the Night Visitors . This 1956 musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol was one of the show's most famous installments. This was also remade as an animated movie in 1978. Scrooge is played by Basil Rathbone, best known as the de

I reviewed this once before, way back in 2011 (a.k.a.: year two of the blog). I didn't have much to say then, mainly because I hadn't seen all that many adaptations of A Christmas Carol at the time (nor was I all that familiar with the era). This was still in the "we'll be wacky and watch a bunch of Christmas stuff for no reason" phase of the blog.  At the time, I basically summed it up as fine for what it was, but still kind of boring to sit through. After watching the 1935 version with Seymour Hicks , I wanted to give this another viewing to see what I'd missed. Turns out, there was quite a bit.  I've seen this version called the best adaptation out there, a claim that.... Look, I want to be fair here, and - to the extent possible - objective. As a straight adaptation, I think there's a case to be made. This version is faithful to the source material, deviating only to expand the story. I want to take a moment and focus on something that differs bet

It has been a few years since we've done more than a smattering of Hallmark Christmas movies, so this year we're taking a relatively random sample to see what's been going on in the most generically inoffensive place on earth.  This movie has a predictably bonkers premise, although the execution was surprisingly low-key. I can't decide whether or not that was better than the alternative.  The movie centers on Haley, your stereotypical workaholic go-getter. (In the opening scenes she literally tells her assistant that she's canceling a date because she wants to concentrate on work.) She works in branding/marketing, and she wants to land a new account with a big toy company - part of her plan to land a big promotion. Her boss, however, says that the toy company is all about holiday traditions and Haley doesn't understand those, so she sends Haley to "Christmas Camp."  Christmas Camp, it turns out, is a one-week special event run by an inn in Western Mass

All right, cards on the table: despite being plenty old enough to remember the marriage, divorce, and death of Diana, I didn't really pay much attention when it was going on. Or after, for that matter: I never found the news specials, documentaries, or movies/shows appealing. To put it another way, I know very little about the life and death of Princess Diana. I went into Spencer with virtually no context about her or the royal family. That might be an issue here, because I get the feeling you're supposed to have a little background before seeing this movie. It seems to be challenging the viewers' understanding of Diana, which presupposes you actually have one. I don't think this invalidates my opinion on the movie, but I want to be upfront about where I'm coming from and what my limitations are. If you're someone who's been fascinated by this person and the tragedy around her death, you're likely going to view Spencer through a very different lens and w

This 1938 MGM version of A Christmas Carol is notable (among other reasons) for being the first Hollywood adaptation of Dickens' classic with sound, though a British version starring Seymour Hicks beats it by three years and is, in my opinion, a far better film. That's not to say this one is bad - parts are fantastic - but the 1935 is difficult to beat. Tonally, this is far more comedic than its predecessor or most subsequent theatrical adaptations. I'll cover the changes in depth in a moment, but as a rule of thumb most of the darkest bits are excised, and the additions favor light, family-friendly fare. When it's not going for laughs, it skews towards lessons. This version is somewhat more instructive than I'm used to, often outright lecturing on morality, rather than having the protagonist come to his own conclusions. This story deviates significantly from the source material, perhaps more so than any major live-action version prior to the 2019 miniseries . As I

The first thing you need to understand about 1941 is the level of talent - both in front of and behind the camera - is unmatched in its genre. The cast includes Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, John Candy, Slim Pickens, Christopher Lee, Ned Beatty, Patti LuPone, and Toshiro Mifune, just to name a few. It was written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, who served as producers alongside John Milius. The movie was scored by John Williams, who belongs on the shortlist of greatest film composers of all time. And speaking of "greatest of all time," it's directed by Steven Spielberg. The second thing you need to understand is the movie is absolutely godawful. Just horrible. An utter mess of a film. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe you should flip those two bullet points, so "it sucks" is the first thing, and "it's made by unbelievably talented people" is #2. Before I go on, I need to specify there are two cuts of this movie. Right now, I'm reviewing

Credit where it's due: Netflix has mastered the art of producing low-to-mid budget TV Christmas romcoms capable of garnering far more attention than they deserve. This time, they managed to lure Lindsay Lohan into taking the lead role, presumably by offering her an ungodly amount of cash. The investment seems to have paid off, at least from a marketing perspective. The movie apparently attracted a great deal of interest and - assuming Netflix's numbers mean anything - quite a few views. As for the movie itself... well... you probably have a fairly good idea what I'm going to say. As a rule, I don't like these things. Falling for Christmas, like so many pseudo-fairytale G-rated holiday romances before it, seems to flaunt the fact the script isn't trying. It adheres to its formula and fills in the blanks with some of the worst dialogue I've heard in... well... honestly, I watched a Hallmark Christmas movie two days earlier, so the worst dialogue I heard in about 4

For those of you trying to keep track, this British production is the first feature-length adaptation of A Christmas Carol with sound. It stars Seymore Hicks as Scrooge, and despite leaving an imprint on subsequent versions, it seems to be widely dismissed as inferior to the 1951 movie of the same name . I don't at all agree with that - I prefer this one, and not just because it's shorter (though that doesn't hurt: I'm a believer most modern adaptations of A Christmas Carol are too long). I think Hicks is fantastic as Scrooge. He looks and acts very different than the version that's become the norm. Hicks is quite a bit stockier than most versions of Scrooge, and he's a little wilder in appearance and in his mannerisms. To me, this makes his eccentricities a little more believable. At the beginning, he feels like a curmudgeonly old man who's not quite right in the head. Frankly, he's an angry conservative, rather than a cliché villain. Then, after his tr

As you've probably guessed from the heading, this covers six separate silent adaptations of A Christmas Carol. As far as I can tell, this is the entirety of surviving footage from that era. To be clear, there are several other known versions that have been lost, including "The Right to be Happy," a 55-minute film from 1916. Not all of the films discussed here are available in complete forms, either. If you're curious about any, they're all readily available for free online - just go to YouTube and search by name and year. Before I get to my individual reviews (to the extent the term even applies here), I'll give a brief overview for those of you who'd rather not wade through four thousand words of text about a bunch of movies 100+ years old. That's all of you, right? I'm grouping these together as a single post, because I can't imagine anyone would be in the least bit interested in seeing these appear one a day for a week. In general, these mov