Monday, December 17, 2012

Carol for Another Christmas (1964)

American Broadcasting Company
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Turner Classic Movies)

Sterling Hayden stands in for Ebenezer Scrooge, here he is Daniel Grudge, an aging, wealthy man living in a huge mansion with only a couple of servants to keep him company. A relative visits on Christmas Eve to talk to him about a cultural exchange program that Grudge had halted. The conversation quickly turns political with Grudge's conservative stance conflicting with the more liberal university professor. It turns out that Grudge's son was killed in war, leaving him bitter towards all of mankind. That night he is visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, Dickens' familiar plot device, which is used to explore the themes of war and international politics. In the past, he relives a visit to Hiroshima after the bombing, including a particularly haunting sequence involving young children injured by the blast. In the present, he faces a concentration camp full of hungry prisoners, while the ghost taunts him from his own huge table full of food. In the future, a post apocalyptic society listens to a speech by Peter Sellers imploring them to kill themselves so he can be king. The screenplay by Rod Serling is a bit talky, and occasionally feels like an extended episode of the Twilight Zone, but there is no denying its powerful critique of war, and of the politics of isolation and hatred that lead to them. The film is just as relevant today as it was nearly 50 years ago.

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