#scrooge 1970

[princesssarisa]

I've posted about this before, but I'll do it again.

I still think it's hilarious that in Scrooge (1970), both Scrooge and Marley are played by actors who went on to play older versions of Ewan McGregor.

Albert Finney...

...played the older version of McGregor's character in Big Fish.

And as for Alec Guinness...

...I think everyone knows.

Even without this coincidence, it's funny to see Guinness playing a ghost in Scrooge, since Obi-Wan spends two-thirds of the original trilogy as a Force ghost.

Now all we need is for Ewan McGregor to play either Scrooge or Marley in a new Christmas Carol adaptation (not that we need another one, but they never stop), and it will all have come full circle.

@justice-for-jacob-marley

[daincrediblegg]

No but for real you all need to watch Scrooge 1970 this year or I’ll die about it

Like you can’t want more from a christmas movie. All the songs fuck so hard (written by the SAME PERSON who did willy wonka, btw) Albert Finney was like in his mid 40’s but put his whole pussy into the doddering old man act while showing an uncanny range of emotion that you don’t always get out of a scrooge and jacob fucking marley is played by none other than the OG obi-wan kenobi himself like bro this movie does not miss. Yes the effects are DATED and the set decoration is cheesy as hell but that only enhances the charm of it all. The costumes make up for that shortcoming by matching period perfectly. Cutest bob cratchet award winner also. The title card art is gorgeous and something I miss having in my life. Not to mention that the ghost of christmas present sequence plays like the most fun bar crawl.

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[prismatica-the-strange]

Look at my man go!

I have no real story ideas, or what my S/I's name is gonna be, but here's some ideas for what she'd look like.

1 & 2

It's basically vibes only.

Ship tag: Thank You Very Much

[ronnola]

[asexual-squidward]

Just watched the Albert Finney version of Scrooge (1970) and my love of secondary characters with top hats strikes again

This guy Tom Jenkins runs a soup stall and is in debt to Scrooge, and begs him an extension so he doesn’t have his entire livelihood repossessed. In the Bad Future he is also the leader of the celebrations at Scrooge’s death, ripping up the debt book and literally dancing on his coffin.

All the stall vendors know about Bob Cratchit earning very little, as some give him extras because they like him. In this version Scrooge really is highlighted as the arbiter of who lives and dies in that area of town. Scrooge repossessing people’s stalls could easily leave them homeless in the dead of winter.

I’ve decided to headcanon that Tom Jenkins is particularly spiteful and happy about Scrooge’s death out of a sense of revenge - because he knows Tiny Tim has died and the Cratchet’s are heartbroken because of Scrooge.

He’s not just happy because he and the other vendors no longer has to pay their debt, he’s also getting revenge for the Crachits mourning the loss of their youngest child.

So yeah in the bad future (that thankfully never comes to pass) he is entirely justified in dancing on Scrooge’s coffin

[best-movie-ever-tournament]

Willy Wonka:

A nostalgic classic ❤️

Sure, this film filled me with a sense of wonder as a child—but rewatching as an adult it Still fills me with a sense of wonder. The sets are amazing and Gene Wilder absolutely ate that role! Pure Imagination is a lovely song but the other songs are also very memorable.

Scrooge:

This is the best Christmas Carol adaptation, let alone musical movie. It's got: absolutely delightful tunes; a Ghost of Christmas Past who is absolutely serving Victorian realness; Jacob Marley's delightful little wave; Albert Finney singing curmudgeonly patter songs; some of the best crowd scenes I've seen in a movie musical; Window Symbolism; and a random scene with a bunch of topless, glistening men carrying Scrooge's chain of sins in the most BDSM way possible. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066344/mediaviewer/rm4154746880/ for the Ghost, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066344/mediaviewer/rm2629265408/ for the BDSM demons

[crystalsword]

My Top 5 Christmas Movies

5. The Santa Clause (1994)- I love Tim Allen as the obnoxious businessman turned (literally) into Santa Clause due to an accident and a magical contract. This movie is both funny and heartwarming.

4. White Christmas (1954)- I love the relationships in this movie; both the friendships and the romances. Amazing musical with great actors!

3. Scrooge (1970)- The musical is hands down my favorite version of A Christmas Carol! Albert Finney (actually 33 in this movie) did an amazing job portraying Scrooge’s character and his change of heart. And the songs were really fun!

2. Miracle on 34th Street (1947)- Nothing beats the original version. Amazing actors, especially Edmund Gwenn (Santa), and the court scene has some of the funniest moments ever! I also love the message of the film.

It's a Wonderful Life (1946)- I watch this movie every year! It shows that one person can make a difference to so many people, and that “no man is a failure who has friends.” It is the most beautiful and touching Christmas film of all time!

[burningthrucelluloid]

Christmas Carol-cember, Day 7

“What the dickens have they done to Scrooge?”

That was the tagline for this 1970 movie created to capitalize on the success of the 1968 Oscar-winning “Oliver!” Even going so far as to film at Shepperton Studios for the same sets. 

Fun fact, the 1984 Christmas Carol was also filmed at Shepperton.

By 1970, the movie musical genre seemed to be on death’s door. While there were the occasional box office hits like “West Side Story,” “My Fair Lady," “Mary Poppins,” or “The Sound of Music” most audiences in the late 60s were not hip to them anymore. For an audience disenchanted by the images of Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement and the Counterculture movement on their television sets, a new breed of filmmakers came along to provide more challenging films that appealed to this generation who wanted films that tackled with what they were experiencing in real life. Such films as “Bonnie & Clyde,” “In The Heat of the Night,” “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” and “Midnight Cowboy” are just a handful of the films at this time that found audiences who clamored for them and opened the doors for the filmmaking revolution for the 1970s.

In that same time frame while the aforementioned filmed garnered critical and financial acclaim, the traditional movie musical became some of the biggest movie bombs, notably 1967’s “Camelot” and 1969’s “Hello Dolly!” and “Paint Your Wagon” come specifically to mind, with prominent blame to 1967’s "Doctor Doolittle” for being a massive box office disaster for 20th Century Fox.

Musicals still found an audience, but when they did, they were less extravagant than the Hollywood musicals of old. The Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Help!” radically served as an influential gateway to the birth of music videos that would find it’s way to MTV. Bob Fosse’s “Cabaret” broke the movie musical conventions intentionally by making the songs diagetic solely to be performed with the world of the story rather than being non-diagetic as most musicals did.

The genre would evolve, but for this awkward period between the late 60’s and the early 70s, there wasn’t that much demand for a movie musical and even when you had one, it didn’t try to break the bank for the studios.

But I’m getting sidetracked by film history.

Let’s shift gears back to this 1970 film with 5-time Oscar nominee Albert Finney donning heavy old man makeup and having to sing and dance in this very curious adaptation.

I can understand the idea to take this classic story and turn it into a musical. If a musical about America’s founding fathers can be a cultural touchstone of success, why not try that with Charles Dickens?

For the most part, the soundtrack is hit or miss, though I was surprised to see how many of the songs have found its way into the echelon of Christmas music. “December the 25th” has been used by the Disney Company for events, “Sing a Christmas Carol” was performed by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the song that garnered the movie an Oscar nomination, “Thank You Very Much."

Though even for a musical, its tone is weird. 

Fans of this adaptation defend it by calling it a black comedy. I suppose that’s as accurate as one can get to describe the decisions made by the filmmakers that are pretty obvious upon reflection. Notably in the sequence for the song “Thank You Very Much” where Scrooge assumes everyone is praising him for being a great guy, totally oblivious that everyone is actually spitting insults on his coffin as it’s being wheeled through the streets to a large crowd dancing on a closed set.

And then there’s Albert Finney.

Finney was a fantastic actor in his lifetime, effortlessly able to slip into any role he was presented with. His performance as Scrooge is no different, but he plays him off as so cartoonishly over the top, he makes Tori Spelling and Scrooge McDuck look subtle. Yet to his credit, he’s not a bad singer and he is able to keep a tune and perform the music numbers with the energy required. I especially find the song “I Hate People” far more revealing of Scrooge’s personality than previous iterations I’ve spotlighted before as this song exposes his cynicism towards the world yet expositing that his beliefs are the right ones. Beliefs that are challenged over the course of his journey of self-reflection that he starts to face his own twisted worldview.

Though, and I admit this is a me problem, but I can hardly understand a word he says with the voice he chose for this performance. I read that he went through training to perform with vocal inflections to do this character, but it only makes it harder to understand him. It’s not quite mumbling but it’s like trying to sing with sand in your mouth, it only leaves it off-putting. Though like I said, even when I can hear him, it’s clear he’s keeping with the tempo of the song, this is most notable with the song “I Like Life” that has plenty of lyrical traps to trip anyone up.

But that’s not what people best remember about this movie.

They remember it for the one scene that never makes it into any other adaptation.

Scrooge goes to Hell.

During the sequence of the Ghost of Christmas Future, upon seeing his grave, he’s pushed in and falls until he arrives in Hell. He is then escorted by Jacob Marley, played by a very raspy but also very cheeky Alec Guinness, who takes him to a frost-covered counting house (Lucifer turned off the heat so Scrooge wouldn’t get drowsy) to spend eternity working the Devil’s accounting clerk while covered in chains so massive he can’t even stand up. Marley warns him to “mind the rats” and when Scrooge begs for help, Marley just closes the door, gives a wave and retorts “Bah Humbug."

I did not make up any of that.

And it is just as hilarious as I made that out to be.

So for anyone wondering where Burney Mattinson and his animation team at Disney got the idea for Scrooge McDuck being pushed into an open grave that lead to the flames of Hell, here you go.

I admit that first time I watched this, I didn’t really like it. 

It bears the problem that I have with a lot of movie musical from this time period: over-produced and too extravagant with large choreographed dancing crowds with long shots to get the crowds that only expose how limited the set is. Coupled with some songs that don’t exactly reveal anything about the characters and they just drag out the runtime.

Giving it another chance, I still found myself looking at my watch as the film dragged on. Some songs I did like more a second time around than I did a first time and Albert Finney’s Scrooge grew on me a bit more now that I recognized what the film was trying to do.

That said, I see this film as a relic. A relic of a genre of film that was in a much needed overhaul for a new audience but still desperately holding onto these conventions that were proven hit-makers decades before. It’s not a movie without merit, but I’ve seen musicals that are more focused and their songs do more to drive the plot than to grind it to a halt so you can watch people sing and dance for 5 minutes or more. The recent John M Chu film "Wicked" is proof of that. Take it or leave it, watch at your own expense.

“Scrooge 1970” is available for free on Pluto TV, Sling TV, and PLEX with streaming availability on MGM+ and Paramount+.

I’m also aware there is a 2022 animated remake on Netflix with Luke Evans in the role of Scrooge, but I’m not interested in covering it.

Next week, we go into exploring the trend of A Christmas Carol as a musical and explore what the filmmakers achieve when you use music to tell the story.

Next time, we cover a Christmas Carol that involves more puppetry to tell it’s story.

Or perhaps…more “Muppetry?"

[spookedlev]

Merry Christmas! I’m down incredibly bad for 1970 Bob Cratchit!

[princesssarisa]

I still think it's hilarious that by sheer coincidence, in Scrooge (1970), both Scrooge and Marley are played by actors who later played older versions of Ewan McGregor. Albert Finney played the older Edward Bloom in Big Fish, and of course Alec Guinness was the original Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Now that he's within the right age range, Ewan McGregor should play either Scrooge or Marley one of these days to bring it full circle.

[daincrediblegg]

Same man

[hug-your-face]

"It's the nicest thing anyone's ever done, for, me!"

“Thank You Very Much” is such an underrated song from Christmas Carol adaptations. I think it’s such a wonderfully messed up way to illustrate how people react to Scrooge dying. 😭

[prismatica-the-strange]

And what if I added Tom Jenkins (Scrooge 1970) to the F/O list... for funsies?

What then?

[tyger-land]

Donald Duck oil paintings (1971-1976) by ᴄᴀʀʟ ʙᴀʀᴋs, based on his earlier comic book illustrations from the 1940s and 1950s.

[adventurelandia]

Uncle Scrooge contact sheet, 1971