My Top 10 Christmas Carol Films

December 24, 2015December 24, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Merry Christmas Eve you guys! I thought I would share with you all my top 10 favorite versions of Christmas Carol.

Of course if you followed Scrooge Month last year you know I love Christmas Carol. It’s one of my favorite books and it’s hard to make a version I dislike (although not impossible. I’m talking to you Ghost of Girlfriends Past).

What I love about Christmas Carol is the message of redemption, which is the true message of Christmas. There are no lost causes and that is because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. That is the lesson which Scrooge learns and I find it very moving. In the end it is a message about hope and that’s what I want to see around the holidays. I write more of my thoughts of Christmas Carol in this blog post:

http://smilingldsgirl.com/2010/12/21/christmas-carol/

Anyway, my top 10 Christmas Carol Adaptations

10. Christmas Carol: A Musical– Not a perfect film but I think worth a watch. I like the music from Alan Menken and some of the fleshing out of the character of Scrooge is a cool take on it.

9. Disney’s Christmas Carol– I know a lot of people don’t like it but I do. There are silly moments but I appreciate the emotion they get right and how accurate it is to the book.

8. Black Adder Christmas Carol- This hilarious special subverts the Scrooge story by convincing a poor sap to be bad instead of good! The writing is so on point and had me cracking up especially anything with the Queen of England. Great performances from Rowan Atkinson, Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, Jim Broadbent and more. 7. Scrooged- a comedic version of Christmas Carol that pokes a lot of fun at media and particularly network TV. It’s definitely a lose adaptation but it makes me laugh and has good performances throughout.

6. Mr Magoo’s Christmas Carol- This is the only Mr Magoo I have seen but I like this version. The animation is beautiful with a Hirschfeld quality to it and the music by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill elevate the special higher than it might otherwise be.

5. Mickey’s Christmas Carol– A fun exercise for Disney having their characters playing other characters which we would see again in Prince and Pauper and a few other shorts in the 90s. This does a great job introducing kids to the Christmas Carol story. My only complaint is I wish they had made it a feature film instead of a short because a lot is left out.

4. Christmas Carol (Patrick Stewart version)- One of the most accurate versions with Patrick Stewart perfectly capturing the Scrooge described in the book. Extremely well made especially for a made for TV movie and includes scenes almost always left out, which I appreciate like the Lighthouse sequence.

3. A Christmas Carol (1984)- I have a few little nitpicks with Scott’s accent and the music but other than that a great version. Scott is great in the emotional scenes and the production feels earthy like what you imagine London might have been like in the 1850s.

2. Muppet Christmas Carol– The best version by far for kids IMO. You have Gonzo sharing a lot of the text from the novel. Michael Caine plays it straight with the Muppets and is believable in the more intense moments. I love the songs and some of the more creative touches like having Statler and Waldorf play Jacob Marley. Their song is great! My favorite Muppets movies are when they take on literature. This and Muppet Treasure Island are actually my favorite Muppet movies.

1. Scrooge (A Christmas Carol 1951)– Starring Alastair Sim this version stands above the rest just on production values alone. The cinematography is stunning, directing innovative, acting from Sims and others is wonderful and I appreciate some of the creative risks they took. They flesh out Scrooge’s backstory a bit without taking it too far, which I liked. To me it has everything you could want in a Christmas Carol movie.

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas! Thanks for your support for the blog this year. God bless us everyone!

Rankin/Bass 6: Twas the Night Before Christmas

December 11, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Next up in Rankin/Bass month is the 1974 short ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. This is a traditional animation take on the 1823 poem of the same name. The poem of course opens with the line ‘not a creature was stirring not even a mouse’. Well, this movie takes that quite literally and tells the story of both man and mouse in the house.

While the animation isn’t the best (particularly the eyes look strange throughout on the characters), this is a really cute entry from the Rankin/Bass team. It basically tells the story of a human cloc maker named Joshua Trundle who works with a mouse called Father Mouse to make the clocks. Unfortunately the mouse son Albert is overthinking Christmas and has written an editorial in the paper claiming Santa is a fraud.

Unfortunately Santa reads the letter and is offended and decides to send back all the town’s Santa letters, both mouse and human, and skip their Christmas all together, which is quite extreme when you think about it but it works!

So the mice must help appease Santa and convince Albert to believe in things he can’t see or explain with science. The plan is quite elaborate where they will build a singing clock that will entice Santa to come to their town after all. Albert eventually see’s the error of his ways and agrees to go inside the clock and repair it. It’s really a sweet little story here. Nothing that will blow you away but it is cute and has a nice message. It’s definitely not subtle but none of these specials are and this one surprised me with the creative storytelling without being too weird. I also felt like they treated Albert’s lack of a belief more kindly than some other more Christian based films might have.

The music is nice and the vocal performances by Joel Grey, George Gobel and John McGiver are all very pleasant. It’s only 25 minutes and so I would give it a watch if you get a chance. Its really adorable.

Talking Holiday Films

December 7, 2015December 8, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

My friend Joe and I got together and talked about our favorite holiday films. It’s more of a podcast format but I think you will really enjoy it.

My favorites I mentioned

6. Arthur Christmas (got to do a longer review of that film one of these days)

5. Home Alone- My longer review go here

4. White Christmas-

3 A Christmas Story (need to do a longer review of this as well)

2. Christmas Carol 1951- My longer review go here

1.It’s a Wonderful Life- My longer review go here

I forgot to mention it on the podcast (so many great holiday films!) but I posted a review today on my channel of Nightmare Before Christmas.

Honorable Mentions I talk about on the broadcast

Elf, Miracle on 34th Street, Muppets Christmas Carol, Die Hard and Mickey’s Christmas Carol

Joe has some great choices on his list including Polar Express and Charlie Brown Christmas Special..

Rankin/Bass 2: Santa Claus is Comin to Town

December 4, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Let’s talk about our first holiday short in Rankin/Bass month (I’ll try to mix up the holiday and non-holiday). We are talking about Santa Claus is Coming to Town. I have to say from the start this is not one I remember watching as a kid. I remember Rudolph but not this one for some reason. I’m not going to say this was my first watch-through but if I have seen it was a long time ago.

With that said, I will say- this movie is weird. It’s just the oddest assortment of strange story, characters, animation, and everything else. I don’t think that is a bad thing per say but it’s just a bit hard to write about. It’s really a very befuddling movie!

Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town aired on ABC in 1970 and it is basically a Santa Claus origin story. Our narrator is SD Kluger (SD for Special Delivery) voiced by Fred Astaire who isn’t given as much to do as you might think.

Basically there is a villain named Burgermeister Meisterburger (a great name!) who hates everything. One morning a baby is dropped on his doorstep and he sends it away to the ‘orphan asylum’ and then the animals rescue the baby from him and the Winter Warlock and then take him to stay with the Kringle Family who make toys. Who knew St. Nick had such grim beginnings!

But luckily the Kringles are sweet and lovely people and Kris grows up and wants to restore the Kringle family as the official toymakers of the King (who knew the king needed such a thing?). So he sets out to make and deliver toys.

Unfortunately Burgermeister has outlawed all toys and basically any other kind of fun. Everything in Sombertown (the name of Burgermeister’s kingdom) is dark and gray and sad. He not only bans toys but declares they are ‘illegal, immoral and unlawful and that anyone who has a toy will be placed in a dungeon!’. These must have been quite the toys!

So that’s sort of the set-up and I won’t give any more away but it involves the magic of the Winter Warlock and Kris Kringle’s attempts to circumvent Burgermeister’s crazy laws. In the course of the story you find out origins for Santa’s name, his relationship and marriage to Mrs Claus, presents under the tree, Christmas trees, going down chimneys, December 24th for presents, flying reindeer etc.

I could see someone really roasting this movie. It’s just so nutty but I enjoyed watching it. It’s only an hour so it didn’t wear out its welcome and did surprise me with the strange choices. The ending is very odd in that Santa doesn’t really save the people from Burgermeister. His family rules for generation until the townsfolk come to their senses. That’s more than a little disturbing if you really think about it…

The voicework by Fred Astaire, Mickey Rooney, Keenan Wynn and Paul Frees is all fine and fun to hear but nothing too special.

The music is a bit of a letdown with nothing that stood out for me. Songs like ‘No More Toymakers to the King’ and ‘First Toymakers to the King’ weren’t anything special and ‘If You Sit on My Lap Today’ made me a little uncomfortable. It’s just odd for Santa to be asking kids to ‘be prepared to pay’ for sitting on his lap.

So overall it is an odd trippy little film but I enjoyed watching it. Have any of you seen Santa Claus is Coming to Town? Have you watched it recently? Let me know what you think. Thanks!

Rankin/Bass Month Introduction

December 2, 2015December 2, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Hey guys! I just wanted to announce my Christmas series I am doing for my blog. Last year I did Scrooge Month where I reviewed 35 different versions of Christmas Carol. I thought long and hard about what to do for this year and decided it would be fun to talk about the Rankin/Bass animated specials and films, many of which are Christmas related.

Most people will be most familiar with Rankin/Bass stop motion TV specials including Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus is Coming to Town and The Little Drummer Boy.

I love stop motion so I look forward to seeing all of these shorts again especially the one’s I haven’t seen or haven’t seen in a while.

Most of these films are from the 70s so it will be interesting to see how they age.

They also have traditional animation like Frosty the Snowman including a film I have already reviewed called The Stingiest Man in Town. I will not be reviewing that again.

Rankin/Bass Productions was founded by Arthur Rankin Jr and Jules Bass in 1960 in Japan. Many of the starting animators like Toru Hara would go on to work on Studio Ghibli with Hayo Miyazaki.

They were able to keep working with many of the same talent over the years including Maury Laws who did almost all of the music and Romeo Muller who wrote most of the screenplays. Paul Frees was also a frequent voice talent for them.

But over the years they also worked with many great stars including Andy Griffith, Burl Ives, Casey Kasem, Fred Astaire, Art Carney, Red Skelton, Walter Matthau, Danny Kaye and more.

Do you have a Rankin/Bass special that you love to watch around Christmas? I would love to hear about it and I look forward to the series. Like last year I will not be giving grades for this series as it is meant to be a joyful experience and not as critical as I might otherwise be. It’s Christmas for goodness sake!