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Deja Vu for Dickens

December 21st, 2007

It’s Christmas, and the airwaves are a-buzz with holiday movies. We can watch countless classics like White Christmas or quirky forgettables like Mixed Nuts. Somewhere in between is the international, cross-media riff-raff I anticipate every year…the many, many, many retellings of Charles Dickens’s tale A Christmas Carol.

Photograph by Rob. Some rights reserved.

I love Dickensonian London. I adore the atmosphere, history, and culture. I just hate Dickens. He can put me to sleep in an opening paragraph—worse than Ernest Hemingway, and anyone who’s read The Old Man and the Sea understands the potency of that statement. But the exception to my Dickens rule is A Christmas Carol. It’s fun to read and even more fun to see acted out in varied and occasionally very creative ways.

It’s serious deja vu for Dickens fans, and I’m sure many strongly object to concepts like Susan Lucci playing a female version of Scrooge, or D-List Diva Kathy Griffin laying down the law as the Ghost of Christmas Past. But I love it! Every twist in the tale, every unique angle, and every bit of traditional story tossed into the mix entertains me from start to finish.

I go out of my way to watch A Christmas Carol remakes regardless of the time of year. As a result I have a lengthy list of versions I enjoy. But in the interest of your eyesight, dear reader, I’ll pare it down to the short list of remakes well worth seeing. This list is chock-full of spoilers, so read with caution.

• Mickey’s Christmas Carol, an animated Disney picture released in 1983. I was four when it dropped and approximately six when it crossed my radar, but there was easily an entire year when I obsessed over this cartoon. Scrooge McDuck (think an older, crankier Donald), Mickey as Bob Cratchit, Goofy as Marley’s Ghost, Jiminy Cricket as the Ghost of Christmas Past…the list goes on and on. All of my cherished Disney characters brought the story to life. It was my first A Christmas Carol experience and will always be my favorite. Major flashback: I cried and cried during the Ghost of Christmas Future sequence when they revealed the fate of Tiny Tim, and a heartbroken Mickey weeps over his son’s grave…
• Ebbie, a made-for-tv flick from 1995, starring Susan Lucci as Elizabeth “Ebbie” Scrooge. She’s the same Scrooge, only anatomically altered; with one or two tweaks in her tale she is the character to a T. Susan Lucci takes it all a bit too seriously–as only she can–but her performance still sparkles. It’s a heartwarming take on the story and the first time I saw a female Scrooge. I liked the feminine twist; somehow when she comes to her senses on Christmas morning she seems to shift from a masculine to maternal persona, and the transformation fascinates me. Massive plus: the divine Molly Parker (Deadwood, Pure, Six Feet Under) plays two roles: Ebbie’s sister and niece, respectively. Double the delight! And for a nice performance, watch for Wendy Crewson (24, To Gillian on Her 37^th Birthday) as “Roberta” Cratchit.
• Blackadder’s Christmas Carol, a UK holiday offering from Rowan Atkinson and the Blackadder gang, released in 1988. (Suddenly I feel very old!) It’s A Christmas Carol as only Blackadder could approach it: Atkinson reprises his famous character as “Ebenezer Blackadder”, and the entire cast of guffaw-worthy characters like Baldrick (otherwise known as “Sod-off Baldrick”, Tony Robinson), Queen Elizabeth I (Miranda Richardson), Prince George (Hugh Laurie), and Lord Melchett (Stephen Fry) round out the oddball black comedy. Clever addition to the tale: Blackadder’s plagued with visions of his ancestors and descendants–which turn him from a good-natured, gentle man into the conniving, misanthropic Blackadder we all know and love.
• A Diva’s Christmas Carol, made-for-tv & aired in 2000. Diva extraordinaire Williams is “Ebony” Scrooge, one member of a successful R&B trio, whom she wantonly casts aside for a solo career. (Even at seven years old it’s a cautionary tale for Beyoncé Knowles!) It’s a completely harmless film that’s fun for its kitsch. And Kathy Griffin positively shines as the Ghost of Christmas Past. This one still gets a fair bit of Lifetime TV airplay so check your TV guides! Word of warning: Although she plays her character perfectly, when Vanessa sings in a concert sequence at the end of the film it is absolutely painful. I’m not sure what happened to her—once upon a time she had a decent voice. As of 2000 that claim is well and truly dead.
• Scrooged, last to be mentioned here but certainly not least. This is also from 1988, a great year for witty Dickens remakes! Bill Murray could not be funnier in the role of Frank Cross, who is essentially Scrooge. The application of the story to the cutthroat television industry is genius–I imagine that if Dickens was alive and writing his tale today, he’d set it in showbiz. There are so many standout performances that make this film a total treat–Bobcat Goldthwait as a disgruntled ex-employee gone postal, Carole Kane as the horribly abusive Ghost of Christmas Past, Alfre Woodard (Desperate Housewives, Radio, Miss Evers’ Boys) as the Cratchit-esque Grace Cooley, and Jamie Farr as a disgusting but hilarious Jacob Marley. Unforgettable moments: the executive lunch when Murray suffers a long string of gruesome hallucinations. His comical shouts, gesticulations, and slapstick act floor me every time. Moment #2 comes after one ghostly visit, when Murray finds homeless Herman frozen–another tearjerker!

Photograph by Kevin Dooley. Some rights reserved.

A Christmas Carol simply is Christmas to me. It certainly doesn’t feel like the holidays until one or more remakes grace my television screen. I doubt anyone could watch the aforementioned titles and come away untouched—be it a laugh, a cry, or a lift in Christmas spirit. So next time you’re looking for an entertaining Christmas story with a dose of emotion and a holiday high, look no further than the many treatments of Dickens’s only tolerable masterpiece!

Dina Ely is a freelance writer, poet, and author of short fiction. Readers can contact her at dely723@yahoo.com

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