Michael May's Blog, page 74

Sleigh Bell Cinema | Home Alone (1990)

I'm joined by my son and frequent podcasting co-host David May (Dragonfly Ripple, Mystery Movie Night , Thundarr Road , 'Casting Off ) to talk about the film that made a star of Macaulay Culkin and signaled the end of John Hughes' reign as the King of Teen. Is Home Alone just slapstick shenanigans or something more?

“I Was a Boy Here!” | Seymour Hicks (1935)

Henry Edwards' Scrooge skips this scene completely. There's not even a transition sequence. The Spirit addresses Scrooge in his room and then instantly they're in another. But it's not the school or even Fezziwig's warehouse. We won't have much to say about this version for another couple of years when we catch up to it again.

Dragonfly Ripple | Jessica Jones: Season 1

David and I talk about the dark and hard-to-watch first season of Jessica Jones.

“I Was a Boy Here!” | Mark McDermott (1910)

In keeping with its limited budget and just general shortness (the whole film is less than 14 minutes long), Thomas Edison's Christmas Carol hits this scene quickly and all in Scrooge's room. The Spirit of Christmas (one ghost for all three time periods) simply calls up vignettes for Scrooge to look at.

The relevant one to this year's scene has Young Scrooge sitting dejectedly at a desk as a younger girl sneaks up behind him to cover his eyes. He stands up and turns around, excited to see her, then kisses her on the cheek. They pantomime her inviting him to leave the room with her and he's unbelieving at first. She convinces him though and they dance around together briefly before she playfully pushes him out of the room and follows him. I can only imagine how this would read to someone unfamiliar with the story. You really have to know what's going on ahead of time, because the film explains nothing.

Old Scrooge has mostly rejected the ghosts' help to this point. He's just wanted the whole thing to be over. But watching his younger self and (Dickens readers know) sister, he's affected. He puts his hands on his heart and then holds them out towards Fan as if he wants to embrace her. Not being able to, he balls his fists in frustration and pouts, going back to not looking at the ghost or engaging with it. The Spirit knows that it's on the right track though. It got through to Scrooge briefly, so it calls forth another scene...

“I Was a Boy Here!” | Jim Carrey (2009)

Robert Zemeckis plays a lot in this animated format, unbound by the limitations of filming live action. Sometimes that's to a fault, but his instincts are pretty good in this scene. The Ghost of Christmas Past never walks anywhere with Scrooge when he can fly the two of them there at a crazy and exciting speed. So we get a transition scene of them zooming out of Scrooge's bedroom and into the snowy countryside. They continue zooming through trees and over fields until they reach a small, country town with a church and a bridge and lots of cute houses. It's very picturesque.

Jim Carrey's Scrooge has already been deeply affected by the ghosts so far. He's frightened and humbled by them, willing to listen to what they have to say. He's visibly moved by the sight of his hometown, smiling and speaking breathlessly about it. The Spirit notices that Scrooge is trembling and thinks that it spots a tear, but Scrooge claims that it's "something in my eye." (I doubt very many adaptations will stick with the lame pimple explanation that Dickens had him use.)

I'm sure I've mentioned before that Carrey is a very good Scrooge. He's acting his heart out in the role and it's touching to see Scrooge so emotional about being home again. He's truly excited by the town and his schoolmates whom he sees riding out of it on horseback and in a wagon. He doesn't call them by name, but says that he knows "every one of them." Their wagon is plastered with a big Merry Christmas banner and though Scrooge doesn't call it out as a reason for joy, he's clearly not humbugging it either.

The Spirit zooms again with Scrooge, this time through the town and to a large, brick schoolhouse on the other side. Scrooge recognizes it with less excitement. His face grows sad and pained as he looks at it, and the Spirit puts those emotions into words, talking about the solitary child neglected by his friends.

They fly again, through the front door, up a grand staircase, and down a hall to Scrooge's classroom. The building doesn't look especially run down, but it is bare and lonely looking. Young Scrooge sits alone in the classroom, singing "O Come, All Ye Faithful" to himself in Latin. He's getting a good education clearly and he's not yet given up on the holiday. He's trying to make himself merry as much as possible, but his voice is sad. As the camera swings around to his face, he gives up the song partway through and frowns in misery. "Poor boy," says Old Scrooge. "Poor, poor boy." And I believe it. There's not even any consolation in fictitious friends, either. The movie skips that part, but I feel like its for a reason: taking away even that little bit of comfort from Young Scrooge.

The Spirit invites Scrooge to see another Christmas and the room darkens and decays around them. The Boy Scrooge fades away as a Young Man Scrooge fades in at the other end of the long room, walking the aisle despairingly as Dickens wrote. He's tearing pages and throwing them on the floor, but the movie doesn't reveal what that's about. They're loose pages, not a book, so maybe it's a letter? Or maybe it's just paper. Something for Scrooge to do instead of sit and feel horrible.

Fan interrupts his bad mood with all the excitement of a young girl. She's maybe nine or ten, much younger than him. Her dialogue is right from Dickens with no embellishment, so we learn that Scrooge's dad does bear some kind of grudge against Scrooge, but we get no details about why that might be.

Old Scrooge is heartbroken by the scene. Memories of his sister rush in and he clearly loves her as he talks about her large heart. He's thoughtful as the Spirit mentions Fred, but there's no time to dwell on Scrooge's nephew. The Spirit takes Scrooge's hand again and they zoom down the long room, through a large opening that was probably a blackboard a minute ago, and into London.

Mystery Movie Night | A Christmas Carol (1951), Lethal Weapon (1987), and Krampus (2015)

It's a special Christmas edition of Mystery Movie Night as Dave, David, Erik, Evan, and I celebrate with a trio of holiday flicks. It's ghosts, guns, and grandmas on this very merry episode.

“I Was a Boy Here!” | Scrooge McDuck (1983)

Like The Stingiest Man in Town, Mickey's Christmas Carol also includes a flying scene, but Christmas Past bypasses the school and takes Scrooge's right to Fezziwig's.

The Spirit does get in a cute line though. When Scrooge expresses fear, Past says, "I thought you enjoyed looking down on the world."

“I Was a Boy Here!” | Walter Matthau (1978)

Rankin-Bass' The Stingiest Man in Town doesn't include this year's scene, but it does have a transition sequence where the Spirit flies Scrooge out of the window and over a surreal, unnerving cityscape. Scrooge says something about not knowing where they're going, but that it seems "strangely familiar" to him. Where they end up going is Fezziwig's warehouse though, so we'll catch up with them there next year.

“I Was a Boy Here!” | Alastair Sim (1971)

Richard Williams' animated version does have a transition scene between Scrooge's bedroom and the countryside, but it's quick and super cool. The Spirit takes Scrooge's hand and leads him towards the camera, which lingers on Scrooge's face as the background strobes around him and we see city rushing by. There's no music or sound except for some bird wings just before the images settle on Scrooge in the country. It's surreal and jarring, but still suggestive that a flight has taken place.

This Scrooge has been relatively humble and compliant since partway through Marley's visit and that continues here. When the Spirit asks Scrooge what that is on his cheek, Scrooge wipes away a tear and says that it's nothing, but he doesn't expect the ghost to actually believe him.

As the ghost explains that they're witnessing unconscious shadows of the past, the scene becomes the schoolhouse. The children are already outside, dancing together in circles. There are both girls and boys, so maybe they aren't actually students. I don't know much about Victorian boarding schools, but I've never imagined them to be co-educational where gender is concerned.

The Spirit mentions the "solitary child neglected by his friends" and the scene shifts to inside the school where Scrooge sits reading alone in a room. We can't see the title of the book he's reading, but above his head dance images of a sultan on horseback, Robinson Crusoe's parrot, and soldiers of some kind. Scrooge wipes his eye again and declares his younger self to be a "poor boy," but we never get a reason for it. The Spirit takes Scrooge immediately from this scene to Fezziwig's warehouse.

There's no mention of Fan, much less Scrooge's father. Knowing that Fred is Scrooge's nephew, we know that Scrooge has to have at least one sibling, but they don't play a part in the story. All we know is that Scrooge was a lonely child for undefined reasons.

“I Was a Boy Here!” | Teen Titans #13 (1968)

The Teen Titans version of A Christmas Carol isn't an adaptation, but just an adventure inspired by Dickens' story. The Titans have noticed similarities between Dickens' characters and the people involved with the Titans' current case, so they're using Christmas Carol tactics to try to redeem Ebenezer Scrounge.

Kid Flash poses as a makeshift Ghost of Christmas Past, but there's only one part of Scrounge's past that the speedster references and it doesn't have anything to do with Scrooge's boyhood or school life. Which is a long way of saying that the Titans version skips this year's scene.