Word: marley
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Theater (CBS, 9-9:30 p.m.). A rerun of last year's success, Trail to Christmas. Jimmy Stewart manages to take Scrooge, Cratchit and Marley's ghost to the U.S. cow towns of the 1870s...
...right at home on the range. When Bob Cratchit, a cowhand squatting on Scrooge's land, made his entrance, Scrooge snapped: "Where've you been? Rustlin' some of my cattle? It don't seem you're ever at the ranch when I come by." Marley's ghost wore a ten-gallon hat, toted a burden of land grants, mortgages and gold nuggets, and the Ghost of Christmas Past was a young cowpuncher who greeted Scrooge: "Howdy, pardner. I reckon you've been expecting me." For an idea that might have driven some viewers...
...Herrmann contributed a few carols lacking either spirit or strength to presume on old standbys, and some solo songs (lyrics also by Anderson) that seemed saccharine even from Tiny Tim (Christopher Cook). Occasionally Fredric March as Scrooge showed some of his talent (as when he tried to wish away Marley's ghost as a case of indigestion), but for the most part, he seemed to be trying to caricature Scrooge Emeritus, the late Lionel Barrymore. The production was technically instructive for viewers interested in makeup techniques-the line dividing March's real nose from Scrooge's putty...
...they are today. (Later, of course, many of the songs were expurgated and tied with pink and blue ribbons.) Often as not, nursery-rhyme characters were said to have had real counterparts, ranging from stern deans (Dr. Fell) to crooked stewards (Jack Horner) to lovely chippies (Alice, or Elsie, Marley). Everyone knows that my pretty maid said: "I'm going a-milking, sir." But in 1698 some of the lines...
...favorite holiday show. Radio had at least four versions, including one starring the late Lionel Barrymore as Scrooge. For CBS-TV, Playwright Maxwell Anderson and Composer Bernard Herrmann teamed up to produce a musical Christmas Carol. Fredric March harrumphed and hammed as Scrooge, Basil Rathbone clanked and groaned as Marley's ghost and, although there were occasional tuneful moments, most Dickens' fanciers recoiled from the sight of the Spirit-of-Christmas-Present (Ray Middleton) bursting into operetta-like arias. In Manhattan, no viewer had an excuse for missing Scrooge since an excellent 1951 British film, starring Alistair...