Rathbone is Scrooge in a musical ‘Christmas Carol’ Classic seasonal tale on DVD is worth watching By Frank Behrens There is still time to purchase as an unusual Christmas gift a DVD that a relation, a friend or oneself probably does not already own. Now that just about every local theatrical group is doing one version or another of a certain classic seasonal tale by one of the great storytellers, yet another version with something of a surprise cast should fit right in. I reported on this disc many months ago, but it is still available and certainly worth the watching. So here are the facts. On the evening of Dec. 23, 1956, the Alcoa Hour telecast a “musical play in three acts” titled “The Stingiest Man in Town.” Basically it was yet another retelling of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” with song and dance, and it was worth restoring on a VAI DVD mainly because of the remarkable cast. From the world of opera there are Patrice Munsel (Scrooge’s boyhood sweetheart) and Robert Weede (Marley’s ghost). From Gilbert and Sullivan there is Martyn Green (Bob Cratchit). From the pop scene are Vic Damone (young Scrooge), Johnny Desmond (Fred), and The Four Lads (Narrator-Carolers and beggars). But the Big Draw in this production is the Scrooge of Basil Rathbone. The old Sherlock Holmes is quite a trooper as he races through the dialogue and doesn’t do too badly with some songs (which he gets through by speaking them in time to the music) and with a few dance steps to show his reformation after the third spirit’s visit. (His Scrooge, however, will never drive from my memory the superb characterization of Alastair Sim in the 1951 British film version.) To be sure, the music of Fred Speilman and the lyrics of Janice Torre leave much to be desired. The former I must describe as “50s homogenous” and the lyrics as less than clever. After all, who wants complex melodies and Lorenz Hart lyrics on Christmas Eve? I must admit that one song does make an impact: “One Little Boy.” As sung by the Spirit of Christmas-Present (Robert Wright) with reference to Tiny Tim (Dennis Kohler), it does conjure up the essence of the holiday, which had long before this show been turned into a frenzy of buying with only a nod toward what the holiday should be about. The crowd scenes are cramped by the studio space, and the choreography by John Heawood is workmanlike, except for wonderful moments when the dances of Dickens’ time are recreated. The original color kinescope (a camera filming a television screen) of this show is lost; and the black and white copy offered here is a little marred by ghostly lines in the video. However (to me at least), this just adds to the magic of watching a relic from the past that is quite a reminder from the long lost days of what live television used to be.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 23:19:00 +0000
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