Carol for Another Christmas (1964)

If Ayn Rand had watched this film when it was first broadcast on American television, she no doubt would have had palpitations. Carol for Another Christmas not only revels in bleeding heart humanism, it also drives a stake through the heart of the Randian philosophy of objectivism. That must have been galling for acolytes of Rand in 1964, but here we are in 2013, and after forty or fifty years of relentless anti-humanist propaganda we now live in a world where the quaint liberalism of Rod Serling has been displaced by - you guessed it - the selfish anti-communitarianism of Ms. Rand. This development would have disgusted the vast majority of Americans in 1964, who would have answered Daniel Grudge's (Sterling Hayden) question to The Ghost of Christmas Future (Robert Shaw) - 'must it be like this?' - in the negative. The ghost, however, doesn't respond - and now, sadly, we know the answer.

Fmovies: This is an interesting movie to watch in 2018, as it's a defense of the post-WWII order of international cooperation for the common good that Donald Trump has been dismantling.

The movie begins with a fairly endless debate between isolationist Sterling Hayden and Internationalist Ben Gazzara over whether America should risk its soldiers in foreign conflicts or build bigger bombs and turn our back on the world. Gazzara and screenwriter Rod Sterling say the former, the subtly named Daniel Grudge says the latter.

Eventually Grudge meets the ghost of war-dead past who argues that our only choice is fight them over there or fight them over here, then has another long debate with a present-day ghost who lectures him on the starving masses.

The most interesting sequence is a post-apocalyptic future lorded over by Peter Sellers as the Imperial Me, who leads his followers in raging against those who would want to discuss and reach out rather than decimate their enemies.

As a piece of entertainment, Carol for Another Christmas is pretty static. Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz does his best to make the film visually engaging, but that's hard when the script is almost entirely conversation. The cast is good, but outraged debate is really not enough to carry a film.

Using A Christmas Carol as the starting point for this exercise is ingenious but flawed. Charles Dickens used the premise to put forth a simple idea - don't be terrible - whereas Serling's version attempts to fit a complex subject into the same format. I believe in International cooperation, but in the present age, having seen the ill effects of attempts to police the world through force, it's hard to embrace Serling's starry-eyed arguments.

This film is kind of worth watching just for the oddness of being a UN-sponsored ad for the UN, and certainly it's heart is in the right place. But the entertainment value is limited.

... like a typical Ayn Rand novel, it tries to solve a problem that does not exist. This is a redoing of the Dickens classic "A Christmas Carol", but this time it is a wealthy industrialist, Mr. Grudge (Sterling Hayden) who is supposed to be the stand-in Mr. Scrooge, in need of a lesson about loving mankind.

But it comes out in the first conversation with Grudge's nephew, Fred (Ben Gazzara), that Grudge is a patriot AND an isolationist...even in respect to WWII! People did feel that way about WWI after it was over, and there are even tons of anti-war and isolationist American films made up to 1940, but that was a very unusual even extremist position for any American to have about WWII once it began. Plus Grudge actually fought in that war, as we see in the "Christmas Past" episode. We also learn that "Marley", in this Christmas Carol tale, is Grudge's son who was killed in a war in a foreign land, and is largely the reason for Grudge's isolationism. What war? For Marley to have been killed in WWII, 20 years before, Grudge would have to be old enough to have a son at least 40 years old, and Sterling Hayden just does not look that old! In fact he was 48 himself when this was made.

The last part, about "Christmas Future", has Peter Sellers doing a bizarre part as some kind of evangelist of selfishness, and the performance itself is worth the price of admission, but in context it just does not make sense.

Even though this whole thing is a bit of a mess - including insinuating that we should just trust the Communists in eastern Europe and Russia at the time in spite of their past actions - it is a product of a huge fear of nuclear war in 1964 and that this war might start even accidentally. For that purpose this is worth watching to get a feel for what people feared and what they thought were the solutions, even if as a dramatic piece this comes across as overly talkie and very preachy.

Carol for Another Christmas fmovies. 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 ...

A Carol for Another Christmas (1964)

* (out of 4)

Rod Sterling wrote this updated version of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, which centers on a grieving father (Sterling Hayden) who recently lost his son in a war and takes his anger out on everyone around him. The man eventually gets visited by three ghosts (Steve Lawrence, Pat Hingle, Robert Shaw) and learns a lesson. A CAROL FOR ANOTHER Christmas was directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and if you look around at reviews you'll see that there are many positive ones but I'm not going to be among them. In fact, I'd go as far to say that this here is without question the worst "version" of the Dickens' tale that I've ever seen and it's rather shocking that with a writer and director like this film has that the film could turn out so bad. The idea of updating the story isn't what kills the film. The film is a very anti-war picture that speaks of the evils of war and it pretty much beats the viewer over the head with its message. I don't mind any film being political and I don't mind a message being passed but what I can't stand is when that political message is poorly written and is nothing more than a writer ranting for people to hear his story. I personally grew tired of the dialogue within the first ten-minutes and I really started to hate the characters. Nothing here felt real because it just seemed like one big political rant. Yes, war is evil. Yes, people die in war. The message could have gotten across a lot better without all the preaching and bad dialogue. Not to mention countless bad situations where things happen for no reason other for another speech. The film offers up some fine performances by all and we also get Ben Gazzara, Eva Marie Saint, Britt Ekland and Peter Sellers in brief roles. Fans of the all-star cast are going to be tempted to watch this thing and it's a real shame their talents are so wasted.

Carol For Christmas is about 20 years behind the time when it was presented on TV in 1964. It would have had far more appeal had television been available in 1944.

Industrial tycoon Sterling Hayden is bitter at the world because his son Marley died in World War II. He's the last of the isolationists and wants no foreign involvement anywhere period including humanitarian aid.

The error of his ways is told to him by those spirits of Christmas past, present and future. And if you know the Dickens story and how many in the English speaking world have never heard of it than you pretty much know what the story is.

If this had been done in 1944 when Hayden's son was killed, a lot of people invested their hopes and dreams in a new world organization to come, the planning of which was undertaken even while the guns were still blazing in battle. The story would have resonated well with World War II audiences.

As it is coming out in 1964 before the troop escalation in Vietnam the film came out under the wire. Five years later, ten years later, it would have met with derision from Vietnam era audiences. The message still has problems today with the issues surrounding globalization.

However one portion of it rings very true for what has been determined to be the 'Me' generation. How prescient were the writers in creating Peter Sellers's character of 'Me' the symbol of the ugly American who believes in selfishness and divisiveness. Just grab what you can, whenever you can and if some in the world don't have as much, too bad. Not to mention if they protest, kill them. This part of Carol For Christmas was as prophetic as Network in its way.

I caught this over the Christmas holiday, make sure if you haven't seen it, catch it next year if TCM runs it again.