Scrooged
Charles Dickensâ holiday classic A Christmas Carol still remains to this day his greatest piece of work, so much so that it is credited by many for single handedly redefining the true meaning of Christmas (and Christian values) as being the catalyst for emphasizing kindness and mercy for all people. Over the years, some of the greatest actors in history have taken their best shot at playing the role of Ebenezer Scrooge on both stage and screen, with Dickensâ view of Victorian era London where the poor starved and froze to death on the streets while the rich callously lived their insulated and protected lives in relative ignorance of those less fortunate has more often than not left an enduring impact on both readers and viewers. Enter Michael OâDonoghue, full time writer and part time cast member on Saturday Night Live during their initial âgolden yearsâ (1975-80) and widely considered to be one of the most subversive comedy minds in all of history (his own raw, scathing, often politically incorrect segments on the show were the stuff of insane genius). During the 80s, OâDonaghue was already seemingly picking up on the notion that atheism and secularism were on the rise in this country, ESPECIALLY when it came to Americaâs corporate infrastructure, which regarded religious freedom as being non existent in the workplace but like any good capitalist always knew that the big money draw of what cashing in on Christmas and the holidays would bring (as witnessed by the ever rising popularity of Black Friday), so OâDonaghue came up with a script that both deftly adapted A Christmas Carol for modern times while also incorporating this modern day attitude with such a stunning precision that one wonders even today why those who say âHappy Holidaysâ and insist on the removal of Christian symbols from our decorations havenât taken the time to watch this movie which directly spells out both the meaning of Christmas and Christian values in a very basic, spoonfed way. Instead of the nasty old man that was Scrooge himself, OâDonaghue rewrote the part as a TV network President in his late 30s named Frank Cross, someone who has expertly played the corporate politics game and wound up winning big, but yet is so cynical that he stages a live network telecast of Dickensâ classic story (here called âScroogeâ instead of A Christmas Carol) on Christmas Eve of all nights (nearly sacrilege in and of itself making people work like that) and then laughingly promotes it by running a TV ad loaded with violence and gruesome images that practically THREATENS viewers to watch the show itself âor elseâ simply because of all the attention and publicity (good or bad) that running that kind of ad will bring him. As played by Bill Murray, Cross comes off as someone for whom underneath the hilariously nasty attitude and cutting remarks is a severe sense of deep inner emotional pain and bitterness, as if his own soul is a black hole which can never truly be filled no matter how much he mistreats people whether it be his underpaid secretary played by Alfre Woodard (who still lives in the ghetto despite working in this high level corporate monolith) or a bumbling lower level executive played by Bobcat Goldtwait whom he happily fires two days before Christmas for questioning the validity of his sicko ad (these two kind of âshareâ the Bob Cratchit role in the story). And Murray IS brilliant in the part, with it being explained to us that he had spent his entire childhood watching TV and little else while being deprived of toys and other childhood trinkets by his coldhearted bastard of a father (real life brother Brian Doyle Murray), which had left him as a child completely brought up from the television age with little regard for the actual real world and its suffering that goes on (with numerous references to old TV shows scattered throughout the dialogue) even as he is shown giving a blasĂ© acceptance speech for some random humanitarian award (in a throwaway moment) and even entertains the suggestions of his oddball old network boss (Robert Mitchum), a man who is even more out of touch with reality than he is. All of this makes him ripe for the visits of the three Christmas ghosts that we all know and love (even with the irony of the rehearsals for the live broadcast of the original story going on in the background), but first we must meet the stand in for the Jacob Marley character, that being his old friend and mentor Lew Hayward (John Forsythe, heavily covered in rotting latex), described as being the âman who invented the miniseriesâ, who gives him the requisite initial warning to change his ways, and then itâs on to the ghosts themselves, Christmas Past (David Johanson), a brash, loud talking cab driver, Christmas Present (Carol Kane), a pixie dust fairy type who enjoys beating the shit out of him in some of the filmâs best moments, and Christmas Future, a silent, hulking grim reaper with a television for a face and little demons within his torso. Along the way, we continue learning more about the man himself, as it turns out that Cross once had a longterm, heavily committed relationship in his past with Claire (Karen Allen, admirably doing thankless romantic interest duty here), a lovable hippie chick with a genuine interest in helping others (especially the homeless) and creating the interesting juxtaposition between her counterculture values (romanticized as they are here) and the raging capitalist mentality that completely consumes Cross as he puts both his career and climbing the corporate ladder ahead of his relationship with someone whom he truly loves (interesting how he remains rich and single 15 years after their relationship had ended yet at one point remarks offhandedly that he can just âbuy a wifeâ if he wanted to). However the most interesting aspect of the story (not in Dickensâ novel) is the arrival of a new kid on the block executive with obvious aims at taking Crossâ job out from under him (and who had kissed Mitchumâs ass to get his foot in the door just as Cross had kissed Forsytheâs) and as played by John Glover, is the type of fast talking fucking asshole who sits down for lunch and orders a âCalifornia health plateâ and then turns around during a rehearsal and demands for someone to bring him a cigarette, but is still such an obviously transparent, phony, obnoxious, soulless dickhead that even the old pro Cross finds himself deathly afraid of his very presence. In the capable hands of Richard Donner, the film smartly doesnât shy away from being too dark at times and usually refrains from getting too cute for its own good (with a few exceptions), with one well played bit being a friendly homeless guy (Michael J. Pollard) who approaches Cross in Allenâs shelter mistaking him for Richard Burton (not a bad comparison at all between he and Murray) whom Cross later finds frozen to death underneath a sewer grate (an extremely depressing scene which Dickens would have approved of), and some of the other visions offered to him by the ghosts (especially Future) really do seem to hit a little bit too close to home. As one can plainly see, we have a real loaded cast on hand here, along with other cameos by Mabel King, John Murray (Bill and Brianâs brother and star of the 80s comedy flop Moving Violations where he just impersonated his brother the whole time), Jamie Farr, Robert Goulet, Buddy Hackett (as the TV Scrooge), John Houseman, Pat McCormick, Mary Lou Retton, Anne Ramsey, Wendie Malick, Miles Davis(!), and Lee Majors in an opening cameo that is so epic that it should have gotten its own movie! And then there is that ending, hated by some who saw it as Murray being overly self indulgent and just rambling on and on in front of the camera, but yet still an ending that is so crazily heartfelt simply because it makes it so abundantly clear that the road to true salvation is not all that complicated as one thinks it is if we just put aside our own selfish nature and make it a point to show kindness to others less fortunate on every other day BESIDES Christmas as well, which overall in the end completes a masterful character arc for Murray, who starts out by bringing a sad melancholy to his usual smarmy yet funny nature and then closes it out by asking the whole world watching on TV to set a higher standard for themselves in order to make this a better world thatâs more worth living inâŠ
9/10