We said we were gonna look for unseen Christmas movies, and we found one: "Carol for Another Christmas"(1964), a TV movie presented on behalf of the United Nations by ABC, and adapted from Dickens by none other than the great Rod Serling. I hope Uncle Rod won't mind me saying this, but when I said we were looking for Christmas movies, this wasn't exactly what we had in mind. It's tremendous, but his retelling of A Christmas Carol, set against the backdrop of Cold War and potential nuclear devastation, is so unrelentingly bleak that it's like Rod wanted to get the audience in a hammerlock until they agreed to see sense. Macho Sterling Hayden (from "Dr. Strangelove") plays "Daniel Grudge", a right-wing ex-WW officer who's done well in the private sector, post war. On Christmas Eve, his bleeding heart liberal nephew "Fred" (Ben Gazzara) come to visit him. Fred is a college professor with a hundred do-gooder causes. Grudge doesn't want to hear another pitch from him for charity; he preempts Fred by going on a tirade against the futility of helping the poor, or - worse - trying to create a refugee-friendly, melting pot society.
Fred tries to get his points across but realizes its no use. As Grudge tells him, "you can't change me and I can't change you". So he wishes Grudge a Merry Christmas and bids him good night. Then Grudge, like Scrooge, is visited by three ghosts during the night. The first, Steve Lawrence, is the Ghost of Christmas Past. He represents every soldier who's ever died in war. He gives Grudge a heavy twenty minute spiel about the costs of "having the fastest bombers on Earth". Then he takes him on a tour of Hiroshima, where they visit children in a radiation burn ward. Next up is is Pat Hingle, as the gluttonous Ghost of Christmas Present. He feasts while half the world starves, and berates Grudge for his cheapness. Hingle paints such a stark picture during his presentation of world poverty that you'd think the human race is irredeemable.
Finally, there's Ribbert Schaugh (pre-heavy alcohol use but working up to it). He's the Ghost of Christmas Fyoochum, and he shows Mr. Grudge what the world will be like after the nuclear holocaust. All that's left is a combination of MAGA types and The Walking Dead. They have a leader, a cowboy Trump type who calls himself The Imperial Me (Peter Sellers). He eggs his followers on, to distrust all outsiders, of which there are few because the world's been blown to smithereens. "But we must still eliminate them", he exhorts, "because they threaten The Imperial Me!"
Man, Rod. Talk about laying it on thick! Rod Serling was a great moralizer, and to his credit he uses the didactic format to great effect here by allowing the adversary to have his say in a reasonable manner. He doesn't present Mr. Grudge as crazy, or even necessarily wrong on all counts, but even when Grudge makes a salient point, his overall arguments are shot down in total by the ultimate result of nuclear confrontation. What does it matter if his philosophy is partially legitimate if the world is going to destroy itself? The final result is that the Earth is inherited, not by the meek but by the insane and illiterate, led by The Imperial Me, who represents the arrogance of ignorance. This kind of writing worked best on Twiight Zone, where any manner of context, from UFOs to telepathic children, to towns where time stopped, could be used to dissect moral platitudes. But here, on Christmas Eve, Rod's got you at two minutes to midnight on the nuclear clock while reading you the riot act from the Book of Revelation. Pestilence and famine would be a relief from what he's predicting. It's still a genius script, and you can't argue with most of it (but in my more conservative older age, I can argue for a strong, defensive military). And, Rod was a paratrooper in WW2, so it's not like his worldview wasn't born of experience. He was the one and only Rod Serling, case closed. But for our purposes, the whole point is that we were looking for Christmas movies, and this movie sucks the wind right out of Santa Claus's sails.
It's a great movie for the Cold War era, but it's so in-your-face depressing that it isn't very Christmassy. It's not Christmassy at all, in fact. It's a warning movie, that the world could end at any minute, and even if it doesn't, life sucks because the whole world is in pain and starving. Rod must've been pretty pissed off when he wrote it. Two Big Thumbs Up, but not recommended for the holiday season. The picture is very good. ////
The previous night we found a fun one entitled "I'm a Stranger"(1952), a Veddy Brrrittish mystery in which a man abroad travels to London from Calcutta to claim his inheritance. When we first see "George Westcott" (Patric Doonan), he is talking to his late Uncle's lawyer about the dispensation of the will, which has inconveniently gone missing. The lawyer assures George this will not be a problem, to his great relief. He just wants to collect his money and return to India, where he was born and raised. He's a white Englishman, but he's never been to England in his life and the sheer size of London terrifies him.
We leave the two men talking and cut to the street, somewhere in the city, where "Horatio Flowerdew" (James Hayter) is about to get into his work truck to begin his shift as a window washer, when who should he run into, parked behind him with a car that won't start, but Greta Gynt, playing herself as a movie star. Horatio observes her automotive predicament and recognizes her. "Why, you're Greta Gynt! I'm a big fan of yours, so's me wife." And so are we! (Remember that Greta Gynt binge we went on last year?) She's in a hurry to get to a rehearsal for her next picture, so he offers to drive her in his window-washer lorry, and she accepts. On their way, however, they hear some noise in the back of the truck. Horatio pulls over to investigate and there's a stowaway on board, a young woman who's been shot!
Holy moly. Gynt and Horatio start to take her to hospital (it's just plain "hospital" in England, no "the") but she begs off. "Just take me to my doctor". "Oh, I know him," says Horatio. He drives over to the doctor's office, which is also his residence. They knock and a tight-lipped older woman answers. She hustles the girl inside as if she knows her, then slams the door on Gynt and Horatio. Not knowing what else to do, they go straight to the police station. Horatio belongs to an amateur detective club (like Book of the Month), and he's got several theories, none of which the head detective is interested in. He thinks Horatio and Greta are a pair of nitwits, possibly having a laugh at his expense. But because he can't take a chance (they might be legit), he drives them back to the doctor's home/office, and an investigation begins that takes up the remainder of the 56 minute movie. It's exceedingly clever, staged like a play, with many kinds of British officiousness and opprobrium on display: smarminess, working-class smarts and charm. There's unique touches, like having Greta Gynt play herself, and the English heir from India who's never been to England in his life. I wonder if there are Americans like that, say a white kid born in China whose folks are from Kansas. Maybe he's 21 but has never set foot on American soil. That would be really weird!
The plot plays out with great intricacy. It's all about the possibility that the will has been stolen, or rewritten, and the girl who got shot was trying to steal it. A gun was found on the premises. The heir admits it's his. He tells the detectives he shot the girl because he thought she was an intruder. "As I say, I'm not used to London. There's 8 million people here." And there's a twist toward the end that you'll never see coming. Two Big Thumbs Up for "I'm a Stranger". We love our British crime flicks, especially with a dose of the eccentric humor the Brits are known for. This one is very highly recommended and the picture is razor sharp. ////
That's all for this evening. My blogging music tonight is "Johnny the Fox" by Thin Lizzy, and "Another Fine Tune" by Gilgamesh, tremendous albums both. My late night is "Parsifal" by Wagner, conducted by von Karajan. R.I.P. to the great Angelo Badalamenti, whose work on the Twin Peaks theme could be said to have Wagnerian influence. I was fortunate to see him perform some of his music, accompanied by David Lynch, at a screening of "Inland Empire" at The Armand Hammer Theater in Westwood in 2007. David was choked up during his daily weather report yesterday, and today he gave a two word tribute to his friend and colleague, saying simply "Angelo Badalamenti" in the spot where he usually mentions a song. Truly one of the iconic modern composers, you can't imagine Twin Peaks with out his soundtrack.
I hope your week is going well, and I send you Tons of Love as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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