Auntie_Inflammatory
Daniel Grudge (Sterling Hayden) is visited on Christmas Eve by his nephew, Fred (Ben Gazzara). Fred's angry because Grudge nixed a plan for the university he works at to have a "cultural exchange" with a university in Poland. They argue isolationism vs. interventionism and both arguments are ridiculously extreme, veering off into monologues. You're not supposed to like Grudge but Fred isn't likable either. He comes across as a jerk while talking about Grudge's (war) dead son. Grudge dismisses Fred and, moments later, is magically transported onto a ghostly freighter carrying war-dead from all wars and nations. Here, he meets The-Ghost-of-Christmas-Past (Steve Lawrence), an every-man soldier who speaks Brooklynese. Grudge shows little surprise and no fear at either the sudden change of scenery or meeting a ghost on a ship full of coffins. Past-ghost argues against isolationism and his rebuttals to Grudge turn into speeches. Lawrence gives a very good performance but his argument is too naïve and simplistic. "So long as you talk you don't fight." Oh...I guess if we'd just talked to Hitler all that nastiness in the '40s could've been avoided.After trying to make Grudge feel guilty for not wanting the U.S. to get involved in foreign wars, Past-ghost contradicts himself by trying to make him feel guilty for having served in WW2! He has Grudge relive a time, 20 years earlier, when he (Grudge) was in the Navy and visited some Japanese children disfigured by the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. One of the bandaged, faceless girls sings a delicate, haunting song because it's more poignant when a suffering person can sing nicely. There's a disturbing, "Look what big, bad America did", vibe to this segment. Grudge's WAVE driver (Eva Marie Saint) acts more civilian than corps-woman. She guilt-trips Grudge about the bombing (as if he's personally responsible) even though, he points out, it likely saved 500,000 American and 2,000,000 Japanese lives.Grudge is then directed to a sound-stage where he meets The-Ghost-of-Christmas-Present (Pat Hingle). Present-ghost represents the human race and gorges himself on a feast, while starving refugees watch from behind barbed wire, in an attempt to make Grudge feel guilty for not caring enough about the poor.Present-ghost gives Grudge a couple of long lectures/speeches on humanity, quoting statistics about poverty, disease and hunger. While he sermonizes, the refugees sing beautiful, sad songs in their native languages because all poor and/or oppressed and/or suffering people sing like angels. Cue shots of shabby, displaced persons, sitting forlornly in the snow, complete with sad-eyed children.Grudge finally gets sick of being preached at and runs away (I would've fled 5 minutes sooner!), finding himself in a post-apocalyptic future and meeting The-Ghost-of-Christmas-Future (Robert Shaw). Whaddaya know, Future-ghost likes to make lengthy, dramatic speeches too!The arrival of a band of WW3 survivors and their charismatic leader, The Imperial Me (Peter Sellers), seems a reprieve from the speechifying, but no! IM makes a speech! His wackiness livens things up somewhat but it's too little, too late. When IM proposes eliminating the other survivors "down yonder" and "cross river", you half expect "One Tin Soldier" to start playing in the background.Grudge's servants, Charles (Percy Rodrigues) and Ruby (Barbara Teer), are among the survivors. They're the only people with any humanity left and Charles - you guessed it! - makes a speech to persuade their group to talk to the other groups. He's rewarded by getting charged with "the treason of involvement", being harassed by the crowd, and finally getting blown away by Mike Teevee's little brother. I guess if he'd been killed by an adult it wouldn't have been as much of a "comment on society". At least director Joe Mankiewicz (or Serling) refrained from going full lib-tard, and making it a race thing, by including several Black survivors in the crowd that laughs at Charles and encourages him to jump.With pesky Charles out of the way, IM returns to HIS preaching. This gets too silly. After restating his directive to kill the other bands of survivors, he says that his group should then pick off each other, until only one person remains. Even among crazies, the enthusiasm for this plan seems doubtful.After IM and co. disperse, Future-ghost gives Grudge another (albeit mercifully short) lecture which includes gems like, "When the first bomb dropped on Hiroshima the fate of men could've been predicted by a cut-rate gypsy!" He's saying that the U.S. is directly responsible for WW3!When Grudge awakens Christmas morning - surprise - his grudgey heart has grown three sizes that day! Fred arrives and Grudge tells him that he's decided to jump on board with the whole "involvement" thing. And now he even likes Christmas carols. God bless us, every one!The ghosts in "A Christmas Carol" taught Scrooge the error of his ways by SHOWING him scenes from his past, present, and possible future. They didn't try to TALK HIM TO DEATH with interminable, preachy speeches!It's as if someone took all the monologues from a monologue slam on interventionism, poverty, and war, strung them together, and wrote a few minutes of dialogue and stage directions linking them together to form a screen-play. The performances are good (particularly Lawrence, Hingle, Shaw, Sellers, and Rodrigues) but, for the love of God, STFU already!In "A Christmas Carol" Scrooge's actions only affect the lives of himself and those closest to him but in "CFAC" Grudge's actions affect the whole world? His okaying the exchange program with Poland and giving money to charity is going to prevent WW3? Whaaat?!This was part of a series of specials designed to promote the U.N. The "blame America" sentiments aren't surprising, considering how Anti-American the U.N. later turned out to be.It's worth viewing once, just for some of the performances and the sheer oddity of it all. You won't want to make it a tradition.
Michael_Elliott
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.
