Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny (1972)

Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny (Dir: R Winer & B Mahon, 1972). 

If you are looking for alternative Christmas viewing it doesn’t get much more alternative than this, frankly weird, no-budget effort from indie production company R & S Films, Inc. 

Santa (Jay Clark) touches down in sunny Florida and gets his sleigh stuck in the sand. Using his powers of telepathy(!), Ol’ Saint Nick summons the help of some local kids including, for reasons unexplained, Mark Twain’s literary Tom and Huck. The kids employe an assortment of animals, gorilla included, to shift the sleigh to no avail, until the appearance of the titular rabbit who, despite co-star billing, doesn’t appear until the final moments of the movie. When he does finally make an entrance he is inexplicably driving a fire truck, not an ice cream van as you might expect. Really this Santa and Bunny business is just a framing device as Santa settles down to tell the kids the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk, which takes up the bulk of the movie’s runtime. 

Portions of a movie’s musical score being played on kazoo is generally a good indicator that it was made on a low budget. Actually there are many indicators that Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny was made on a low budget: amateurish performances and camerawork, shoddy sets and witless songs are just a few. 

With a disjointed and often nonsensical narrative the movie has a hazy, dreamlike quality that may leave you wondering if you actually watched it or imagined it. Yet, for all that, it does have a certain slapdash charm. 

I seriously doubt if Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny ever appealed to kids, even back in ‘72. It is difficult to see it appealing to young’uns today, unless they have a particular penchant for kitsch movies. 

In the public domain and easy to access via streaming, by all means give it a watch, as there is little else like it around. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it as much as endured it. But it was weirdly watchable and cheaper than drugs. 

Christmas Carol The Movie (2001)

Christmas Carol The Movie (Dir: Jimmy T Murakami, 2001). 

A UK production from Jimmy T Murakami, the talented supervising director of The Snowman (Dianne Jackson, 1982) and director of When the Wind Blows (J T Murakami, 1986); an all star cast and a story seemingly ideally suited to feature length animation treatment. What could possibly go wrong? Plenty. 

The clunky title Christmas Carol The Movie should be some indication that the feature film to follow is not the Christmas Carol with which you are familiar. In fact this take on Charles Dickens’ literary classic is so wildly irreverent it makes you wonder why the filmmakers bothered making a movie based on such a reverential text. The basics are here as miserly Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by various spirits on his road to Christmas redemption. Yet changes to the tale, such as a reconciliation with lost love Belle, are certainly not an improvement, while the decision to show the story through the eyes of a pair of friendly rodents is frankly weird. 

I would be slightly more forgiving of Christmas Carol The Movie if the accompanying animation was anything other than flat and lifeless, lacking style and of Saturday morning cartoon quality. Yet, while the film can only be regarded as a disappointment, it is not entirely without merit. The Ghost of Christmas Present sequence, in which the oversized spectre distributes Christmas spirit via cornucopia, is rather lovely and adopts a unique visual style far more appealing than the rest of the movie. 

Then there is the stellar cast. In live action bookends Simon Callow impresses as Charles Dickens, narrating the action and giving a marvellous vocal performance as Scrooge. Kate Winslet contributes a particularly tender reading as Belle and makes a lovely job of singing end title song ‘What If’. A surprising satisfying casting choice is Nicholas Cage as an understated Marley’s Ghost. 

Yet none of the considerable talent manages to save a movie whose real problems stem from the unnecessary changes it makes to the source material. 

Suitable for younger viewers, but not an ideal introduction to Dickens, this is a sadly missed opportunity to create a definitive animated Scrooge; it is difficult to recommend  Christmas Carol The Movie when there are so many superior versions of the story out there. Check out Murakami and Dianne Jackson’s  masterful adaptation of Raymond Briggs’ The Snowman for some genuine Christmas cheer. 

A Christmas Carol (1999)

A Christmas Carol (Dir: David Jones, 1999). 

So numerous are the adaptations of Charles Dickens’ evergreen A Christmas Carol that it is difficult for any new retelling to bring anything original to the tale. This Hallmark produced made for TV movie features decent production values, some neat visual effects and a somewhat more sombre tone than expected but doesn’t really stand out from the Christmas Carol crowd. 

It does feature a commendable performance from Patrick Stewart in the lead. Stewart had previously played Ebenezer on Broadway and on London’s West End. He isn’t the most imposing of screen Scrooges, but he does bring a subtleness to the role which is often lacking in other interpretations. 

While the star cast assembled here is pretty impressive, not everyone is especially suited to their roles. Richard E Grant, for example, is not ideally cast as the downtrodden Bob Cratchit, while Dominic West makes for an unusually rugged Nephew Fred. Better served is legendary Joel Grey as an eerie Ghost of Christmas Past. Adding a real touch of class are the excellent Liz Smith and Elizabeth Spriggs; both superb in their small yet significant roles as, respectively, Mrs Dilber and Mrs Riggs.

While not top of my Christmas watch list, this A Christmas Carol is by no means a bad movie, just one with a subject that has been better told elsewhere. However, the atmosphere is refreshingly downbeat, never losing sight of the important message its story conveys. This may put off younger family members but is a welcome tonic to the sticky sentiment present in most Hallmark outings. 

Ultimately, the movie gets more right than wrong and while by no means essential, it is worth a look for the talented cast, especially so for fans of Stewart and Grey.

A Christmas Carol (1984)

A Christmas Carol (Dir: Clive Donner, 1984).

Be they traditional retellings or radical reworkings, new adaptations of Charles Dickens’ ever popular 1843 novella are as common as a cock’er’ny street urchin. Less numerous, but still pretty plentiful, were they back in December 1984 when this prestigious US/UK coproduction premiered on CBS prime time, while simultaneously released to cinemas internationally. 

George C Scott here stars as the original grinch, who is persuaded to change his ways after overindulging in Christmas spirits. 

With its story familiar to virtually every living soul, it can be difficult for any new telling to distinguish itself from the all the others. Let’s be honest, no other version can top the masterpiece Scrooge (Brian Desmond Hurst, 1951) with its magnificent central performance from Alastair Sim as, arguably, the definitive Ebenezer. Yet George C Scott makes the character his own, at least for the duration of the movie. 

An interpretation of Scrooge that is somewhat softened; Scott’s portrayal is more disillusioned businessman than the gleeful miser of other adaptations. While this does mean Scott is not one of the screens more powerful Scrooges, it does add a little more shade to a character who can easily become one dimensional in the hands of a lesser actor. 

In a supporting cast peppered with faces familiar from 80s television, the standout, for me, is Edward Woodward. Soon to be seen in popular TV drama The Equaliser (1985- 89), Woodward is cast against type as the Ghost of Christmas Present. With the requisite mix of jollity and foreboding, his success in the part makes you wish he had stepped out of his action comfort zone a little more often. 

A nice moody atmosphere permeates A Christmas Carol. Its impressive production values offer few indications of the movie’s made for TV origins. While it may not rank among the very best versions of the story, it is still a decent movie, well worth including in any annual Scrooge-athon. 

A Christmas Carol (1938)

A Christmas Carol (Dir: Edwin L Marin, 1938).

Produced by MGM at the height of Hollywood’s golden age, A Christmas Carol is a lively, albeit scrubbed up, adaptation of Charles Dickens ever popular 1843 novella. The familiar story is more or less faithful to Dickens' text, as miserly old Ebenezer Scrooge accepts a ghostly hand in relocating his Christmas spirit, much to the relief of his put-upon employee Bob Cratchit, as well as the half of London who are indebted to him.  

Encouraged by the success of David Copperfield (George Cukor, 1935) MGM embarked on this Dickens adaptation, originally intended as a vehicle for character star Lionel Barrymore. Due to sickness, Barrymore had to pull out and was replaced by Reginald Owen, a lesser known but accomplished performer, now best remembered for his role as Admiral Boom in Mary Poppins (Robert Stevenson, 1964). It does seem a bit of a missed opportunity for Barrymore, who would have made an excellent Scrooge. He would later play Christmas curmudgeon Potter in his most famous movie It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946), giving a glimpse of what he may have brought to the role. But don't be too disappointed, as Owen makes for a wonderfully charismatic Scrooge, in what is arguably one of the standout readings of the character. 

An impressive supporting cast were assembled to bring the characters off of the page and into the movie theatre. Notably the great character actor Leo G Carroll as an eerie Marley's Ghost and an appealingly goofy turn from Barry Mackay as Nephew Fred. Gene Lockhart looks a little too well fed but brings an immense likability to his role as Bob Cratchit while Terry Kilburn is a suitably winsome Tiny Tim. A standout for all the wrong reasons is John O'Day as elder Cratchit son Peter whose broad American accent is jarring to say the least! 

The default movie version of the tale until surpassed by British production Scrooge (Brian Desmond Hurst, 1951), this particular Christmas Carol omits all the darker aspects of the story in favour of family friendly festive frivolity. Boasting lavish production values, the characters here seem to have experienced little of the poverty described in the original text in an altogether rather jolly affair which is decidedly more Hollywood than Dickens. While it may seem odd to scrub the story of its more sombre moments, it is worth remembering the state of events when the movie was released; with the US only just beginning to pull itself out of The Great Depression and the prospect of World War II imminent, audiences were looking to the movies for escapism, and A Christmas Carol offers this abundance.

A slightly antiseptic take on the story it may be, but it is warmhearted, festive and highly entertaining. If you watch one Christmas Carol this year, make it the masterful 1951 adaptation Scrooge, with Alastair Sim's definitive take on the character. But if, like me, you head into four or five plus territory, then this good-natured version is well worth seeking out.