A MarkInTexas Made-For-TV Christmas: Charles Dickens' The Christmas Carol (1949)

As I've stated before when reviewing very old specials, most of our early television legacy is lost forever.  Live shows weren't recorded, and shows that were recorded to begin with were usually recorded on bulky, expensive tapes.  Better, the thinking went, was to reuse those tapes, since new tapes were expensive, storing them was expensive, and there was no reason to think anyone would ever want to see that game show/soap opera/sporting event/talk show again.

Amazingly enough, a small handful of very early TV has survived.  In previous years, I've looked at the original production of Amahl and the Night Visitors, from 1951, and for a week of Easter specials a few weeks ago, I looked at Bob Hope's very first TV special from 1950.  Today, we're going back one more year, into the 1940s.  Given that TV had been broadcasting off and on since the 1930s, its highly unlikely this is the first Christmas special ever, and it may not even be the first televised adaption of A Christmas Carol.  But Charles Dickens' The Christmas Carol (complete with incorrect possessive and wrong article) might very well be the oldest surviving Christmas special.

Despite being a low-budget TV offering, it still was able to get a solid name in Vincent Price.  Price wasn't yet the king of horror movies that he would become during the 1950s.  At this point in his career, he was still mostly doing supporting roles in the movies and starring in radio shows and the occasional Broadway play.  Still, he was a well-known performer, and the fact he became even better known in the coming years probably helped save this from the fate of so many other early TV shows.

I wish I could say this was a high-quality production, but as the messed-up article suggests, there wasn't that much care taken with Dickens's masterpiece.  That starts with the casting.  Price was not hired to play Scrooge, which would have been inspired casting.  To be fair, he was only in his late 30s at the time, so was probably too young for the role.  Instead, he acted as the story's narrator.  Scrooge was played by Taylor Holmes, a longtime character actor probably best known for his final role, King Stefan in Disney's Sleeping Beauty, which came out a few months after his death.  He doesn't really do anything different or unique with his Scrooge, other than give him a cold early on.  But apparently this bit wore out its welcome quickly, as it is largely abandoned by the visit from Marley.

That this was a low-budget, low-technology version of A Christmas Carol isn't that big of a deal, even if there is exactly one special effect in the entire show (Marley walking though a closed door, most likely thanks to a Pepper's ghost illusion).  The major problem is that it only runs 25 minutes, including credits and Price's opening narration.  As I pointed out a few years ago when I reviewed the 1971 animated version, a half hour is simply not enough time to do the story justice.  And like that version, this one gallops through the story.  The Ghost of Christmas Past shows Scrooge exactly one scene from his childhood, and that's it.  The Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge the Cratchets, and that's it.  At least The Ghost of Christmas Future has time to show both the Cratchets after Tiny Tim's death and the businessmen talking about Scrooge's upcoming funeral.

There are many, many, many, many, many other versions of this story out there.  To be honest, the only reason to watch Charles Dickens' The Christmas Carol is if you're a hardcore fan of Price or are interested in what TV was like in the very early days.  I'm glad it exists, but if it had been lost to the ages, it wouldn't have been a great disaster.

Next time: Scrooge comes from a land down under.