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Carol for Another Christmas (TV) More at IMDbPro »

10 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
One of the Great TV Dramas, 21 June 2003
Author: treagan-2 from San Francisco

When I saw this when I was in high school, I remember my hair curling. I remember there were threats of boycotts and protests against the politics of this work, which really express just basic humanitarianism, with some liberal fear of nuclear destruction.

Three memories of this production: James Shigeta, playing a doctor in post-nuclear Hiroshima, answers the Scrooge character's (Sterling Hayden) cliched comment about nuclear-damaged girls (singing, with cloth over their scarred faces). Scrooge says, `Well, at least their children will not face this horror." Shigeta answers: "Children?! These girls?!"

The second is Pat Hingle eating the massive chicken leg, with barbed wired keeping out silent, wraith-like, starving refugees. Scrooge: "How can you sit there and eat like that, when these people are starving?" Hingle: "Oh, do they bother you?" And he snaps his fingers and the lights go out, and the refugees disappear. "Feel better?" asks Hingle, taking another chomp out of the turkey leg.

The third is Peter Sellers as "The Imperial Me," a deranged leader of a deranged sect meeting in a post-nuclear bombed-out church. Sellers' turn is both hilarious and disturbing, working the followers (all with Mickey Mouse Club-like shirts that say "Me") into a frenzy.

The teleplay is crammed with earnest, liberal good intentions. But why weren't there a lot more of this kind of artistic effort on television? (I recall a second UN/Xerox special, with Theo Bikel playing a leader of refugees on a ship, but it wasn't nearly as good).

Political and marketing restrictions cost us dearly when more efforts like "Carol for Another Christmas" were not made.

9 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Skip the message, savour the performances, 5 February 2003

Author: F Gwynplaine MacIntyre from Minffordd, North Wales

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

'Carol for Another Christmas' features a teleplay by Rod Serling at his most dead-earnest. As often happened with this controversial writer, Serling's script ran afoul of network censors who insisted on major changes ... inevitably making the material much more innocuous. Astonishingly, 'Carol for Another Christmas' manages to be an entertaining drama anyway, well-directed (by old pro Joe Mankiewicz) with a first-rate cast.

The story is a blatant reworking of Dickens's 'A Christmas Carol', modernised and addressing the concerns of Americans in the 1960s: a fairly original idea when Serling did it. But in the years from 1964 to the present there have been dozens of rip-offs of Dickens's tale (such as the wretched movie 'Scrooged') ... so, from a 21st-century viewpoint, 'Carol for Another Christmas' suffers because it's now one of many, many, MANY reworkings of Dickens's source material. Fortunately, Serling manages sporadically to improve upon the original. For example, this story has no annoying little Tiny Tim character.

In Serling's original script, the main character in 'Carol for Another Christmas' was an embittered industrialist named Barnaby Grudge. This is clearly a Dickensian pun, but Serling also meant it as a pun on 'B. Grudge'... because Grudge begrudges charity to people less fortunate than himself. Television executives insisted that Serling must change this character's name; they were certain that 'Barnaby Grudge' would be perceived as a thinly-disguised attack on Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater (same initials). Serling changed the character's name to Daniel Grudge, and Sterling Hayden gives a standout performance in the lead role as Grudge, the surrogate Scrooge.

After some surly dialogue with his black servants Charles and Ruby, and an argument with his nephew (Ben Gazzara, giving the worst performance hereabouts), Grudge gets some unwanted advice from a surrogate Marley, and then the story proper begins ... with Grudge getting a look at the state of humanity in Christmases past, present and future. (Rod Serling's birthday was 25th December, and he had a traumatic experience on Christmas Day during his wartime hitch as a paratrooper ... I wonder if either of those facts helped inspire this story. I also wonder if the title of this script was a pun on the name of Rod Serling's wife: Carol.)

Grudge's escort to the past is a World War One doughboy, extremely well-played by Steve Lawrence ... yes, the singer who married Eydie Gorme. Steve Lawrence was a very talented actor who seldom got material worthy of his talents: he gives a fine performance here, with some of the best dialogue Rod Serling ever wrote. (I'm a Serling fan, but plausible dialogue was always thin on the ground in Rod Serling's universe.) Lawrence brings Grudge to Japan on Christmas Day 1945, where a Japanese doctor and a U.S. WAVE are trying to help Japanese children who were caught in an American bombing raid. (There does seem to be an unfortunate 'blame America' tone here.)

The Ghost of Christmas Present is well-played by the excellent Pat Hingle, an actor who never achieved the stardom he deserved. Grudge finds the stocky Hingle gorging himself on food at a banquet table, while nearby Third World children starve behind a fence. Hingle invites Grudge to join him: Grudge is willing to eat, but not with those starving children watching him. The fact that those children ARE starving does not particularly disturb him.

Next stop, the future: with the flash of an atomic bomb, Grudge finds himself in the darkness and rubble which are all that remains after World War Three. These are (intentionally) the most disturbing scenes in the drama. What sort of war was this, Grudge wonders? 'A dandy', replies Robert Shaw in a lacklustre performance as the Ghost of Christmas Future. Civilisation was destroyed in the nuclear war, but now one man is trying to inspire the survivors to rebuild the world ... namely, as a dictatorship with himself as the leader. Peter Sellers gives a fascinating performance (with an American accent, better than the one he used in 'Dr Strangelove') as a dictator named Imperial Me. Unfortunately, Sellers seems to be acting in a completely different movie from everyone else. (Which sums up much of his life and career.)

SPOILERS NOW. The character arc of 'Carol for Another Christmas' follows Dickens's novel very closely, so it's no surprise that Grudge/Scrooge ultimately returns to his mansion in the present, where he now sees the error of his ways and he repents. But I found the last scene very annoying and simplistic. As proof that Grudge has reformed, we see him humbling himself by eating breakfast in the kitchen with his black servants. Surely it would be more honest and more ennobling to show Grudge inviting his servants to join him for breakfast in his posh dining room. And the three of them could do the washing-up together. Like so many other liberals, Serling seems more interested in bringing down the mighty rather than uplifting the lowly.

'Carol for Another Christmas' occasionally sinks into knee-jerk liberalism or America-bashing, but this TV movie's good points very much outweigh and outnumber its bad points. I'll rate this story 10 points out of 10. God bless us, every one.

9 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
A Christmas Carol that may not translate to the 21st Century, 13 May 2001
Author: btimmer from South Pasadena, CA

The Museum of Television and Radio owns a copy of this film written by Rod Serling and only shown once on television. Part of its financing came from the United Nations and the theme of the film is more about international cooperation than simply being anti-war.

Sterling Hayden portrays a wealthy man who served in the Navy during World War II and is now a lonely bitter man upset over his son's death in a war he described as needless, presumably in Korea. Hayden is now an isolationist.

The three ghosts think their job is to make Hayden's character more of an internationalist and more willing to accept U.S. involvement in organizations like the United Nations. Coming right before the U.S. racheted up its involvement in Vietnam, it is easy to understand why this film didn't get shown again.

The visit from the Ghost of Christmas Future (Robert Shaw) is the most frightening part of the film. He shows Hayden a post nuclear apoclaypse world run by a weird character called the Imperial Me (Peter Sellers). Sellers is quite effective.

It's an interesting film, but you have to take it in its context. If you are a big Rod Serling fan, it is worth seeing. If you are not, you might find the themes in the film delivered in a rather heavy-handed manner.

6 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
Incomparably great TV drama, 12 November 2002
Author: treagan-2 from San Francisco

This has to be one of the greatest one-time only dramas ever presented on TV. I remember it vividly from its original broadcast: a venal Pat Hingle devouring a huge turkey leg surrounded by starving refugees; the sweet voices coming from little girls scarred by the atomic blast at Hiroshima, their faces covered with gauze; the demented "Imperial Me" Peter Sellars addressing his crazed flock in a burned out cathedral after the nuclear holocaust of the future; Sterling Hayden, a modern Scrooge, his voice changing from booming commands to whimpering as he is led past the succession of proof of man's inhumanity to man.

I saw this again at the Museum of Broadcasting in NYC and I was not disappointed. This is the lost world of thoughtful, creative TV drama, and what a loss it is to us all.

6 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
A great film, 9 August 2001

Author: ozman from Portland, Oregon

I actually saw this unique film on its one and only broadcast. I was in high school at the time and was very impressed. As a fan of The Twilight Zone, I never missed anything by Rod Serling. Not much detail sticks in my mind after 35 years, but I would enjoy an opportunity to see it again

4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
This Cold-War era Christmas Carol is the scariest of all., 15 September 1999

Author: Brad Wright-Hulett from Atlanta, Georgia

It is my understanding that Rod Serling's Carol for Another Christmas was only shown once, and the print is now owned by one of the schools of filmmaking.

This is a tale of the Cold War. In 1964 the Cuban Missile Crisis was still fresh. My neighbor in west Texas dug out his back yard to install a bomb shelter. Duck and cover drills were practiced by school children so they would be prepared for a nuclear blast. Rod Serling (writer of the Twilight Zone series) wonders what the Christmas Carol would have been like if Scrooge lived in this world.

Even though I was quite young at the time this show played there are scenes that I can remember clearly. The Scrooge character has been shown the devastation of the world of the future. He suffers great fear and wants to escape. He tries to climb a stylized wire fence But there is nowhere to go. The only things around are sparse, sterile ruins of a destroyed civilization. I wish I remembered how he resolved his conflict.

1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
I me mine, 7 November 2009
Author: dbdumonteil

Made just after the financial disaster of "Cleopatra" -one of the most unfairly underrated movies of all time,at least in its four-hour version-by Mankiewicz.It's an updated Dickens' "a Xmas carol" with a "modern " uncle Scroodge ;one can notice that the "don't be selfish,open up,don't get caught up in the "me" machine was also treated by Frank Capra in his (certainly more palatable) "it's a wonderful life" .

This is a movie which concerns today's audience ,in spite of its dated details ;more than ever we must help our fellow men and not hide our heads in the sand even when we feel like letting everything down.When the second ghost talks about the hungry people in the world,he's speaking to all of us;it's not surprising that the only man who rebels against the Imperial Me is a black man (and his wife).There's a stellar cast featuring Sterling Hayden as the lead and Eva Marie-Saint,Robert Shaw,Ben Gazarra as the nephew ,Peter Sellers and more ...

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