Word: marley
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...surrounded by so many brave manly fronts-never mind how weak inside-much of the audience simply loses control. Ollie's father (Ray Milland), a stingy old moneybags with a dirty mind, does a heartwrenching doubletake when he hears the dire tidings. The illiterate Italian piety of Phil (John Marley) also deepens the gloom and proves the movies has at least one ethnic. But it is Ryan O'Neal who has been plucking the heartstrings and pursestrings of the ladies of America. Alas, his much discussed son Bozo turns out to be a cruel mirage, a common enough sexual predicament...
...have a wonderful time flying through the air in his nightshirt, being mean to people, being frightened by the ghosts, being nice to people, and generally dominating the movie. Another person who looks like he's enjoying himself is Alec Guinness, who hilariously overplays his role as Jacob Marley. It must be great fun for an actor who is used to understating his comic roles to be able to show anger by shooting up ten feet into the air and rattling huge chains and padlocks draped around his body. And, luckily, he hardly has to sing...
Whether kids should be brought to see this movie is a problem, though. I'm not a member of the Sesame Street generation, so I don't know how mature kids are nowadays. All I can say is that some parts of Scrooge are really scary. Jacob Marley takes Scrooge out to show him the spirits of the damned floating by, and those spirits are just hideously deformed. And they come right at you, and they stare at you, and I for one didn't feel like staring back. The Ghost of Christmas Future is a pretty frightening figure...
...Milk of Human Kindness (yes, it's that kind of movie) from the Ghost of Christmas Present, but such isolated moments from an actor of his stature are slender fare indeed. Sir Alec Guinness materializes from time to time as the ghost of Scrooge's old partner Marley, but he plays the part floating several inches off the floor and flapping his wrists, an interpretation better suited to The Boys in the Band...
Dickens was dead to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. One had only to look at Oliver to see for one's self that Dickens was as dead as Jacob Marley...