Scrooged Movie Review
Scrooged Movie Review, a great Classic Christmas Movie from the 1980s.
Locked deep inside Bill Murray there is a small, hyperactive misanthrope fighting to be heard through the large heavy body that contains him. The misanthrope never sleeps. He’s a busy demon, peering out through Mr. Murray’s squinty eyes, seeing all and remaining actively unimpressed. By the time his nastiest observations fight their way to the surface, however, much of their sting has been absorbed by flesh, leaving a sometimes revivifying but thoroughly domesticated skepticism.
Because Mr. Murray is funniest when the big, laid-back, good-natured slob gives in to the furious mini-misanthrope, “Scrooged,” an updated variation on Dickens’s “Christmas Carol,” is best when Mr. Murray is allowed to be his secret self.
As Frank Cross, the ratings-mad program chief of the IBC television network, Mr. Murray’s contemporary Scrooge is a joy as long as he’s making life miserable for everyone around him. When, finally, Frank sees the error of his ways, the movie succumbs to its heart of jelly.
This may well be the secret of Mr. Murray’s enormous popularity in a series of similarly second-rate comedies, including “Ghostbusters.” In the end Mr. Murray must always deny what has appeared to be, until then, his redeeming offensiveness.
“Scrooged,” which opens today at Loew’s Astor Plaza and other theaters, has some very funny things in it, including snippets from IBC’s big Christmas show, an adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” with a lot of leggy, scantily clad showgirls and a boozy actor (Buddy Hackett) playing a conventional Scrooge.
The actor has trouble with his lines. Standing in the middle of a set representing a Christmas card’s vision of 19th-century London, this Scrooge barks out, “Why must I be molested by sea urchins!” The show-within-the-show promises a lot, but it is never allowed to attain the sublime bad taste of the “Springtime for Hitler” number in Mel Brooks’s “Producers.”
That is not Mr. Murray’s style. In spite of the jokes at the expense of television-network censors, there’s very little in the film, aside from naughty words, that wouldn’t be perfectly acceptable on prime-time television. “Scrooged,” written by Mitch Glazer and Michael O’Donoghue and directed by Richard Donner, exemplifies the kind of lazily executed comedies Mr. Murray seems always to make.
“Scrooged” works in fits and starts. The mundane demands of the sentimental story keep interrupting what are, essentially, revue sketches, a few of which are hilarious.
Frank stuns a network staff meeting when he tosses out the Christmas show’s trailer, which features an avuncular John Houseman reading from Dickens, and substitutes his own. This is an action-packed montage of clips of freeway killers, airplane terrorists and A-bomb detonations. Says one aide, “It looks like ‘The Manson Family Christmas Special.’ “ Frank dismisses the man on the spot.
Scrooged: Classic Christmas Movie Antics.
When the newspapers report that an old lady has died of a heart attack watching the trailer, Frank says, “You can’t buy publicity like this.” A production assistant complains that he is unable to fasten a pair of tiny antlers to the head of a mouse. Frank’s solution: “Staple them.”
John Forsythe appears in an amusing turn as the movie’s Marley, Frank’s predecessor at the network who died seven years before on the golf course, which explains why the ghost is wearing rotting sports clothes. After Mr. Murray (at least when he’s being all-out mean), Carol Kane gives the film’s funniest performance, as the Ghost of Christmas Present. Looking like Billie Burke’s Glinda in “The Wizard of Oz,” she’s a pretty, diaphanous creature who alternately reasons with Frank and punches him in the stomach with the force of Muhammad Ali.
No expense has been spared in the film’s physical production and casting. The movie looks as if it cost a lot even when it’s not necessary; the classiness of the supporting cast, however, is. Robert Mitchum is cool and comic as the network president.
He warns Frank to prepare for the day when cats and dogs will be a significant portion of the viewing audience. Karen Allen is charming as the girl Frank leaves behind in his ruthless climb to the top, and John Glover is the ever-smiling, patronizing new boy at the network who, if things go wrong, will be Frank’s successor.
“Scrooged” is nothing if not contemporary. Frank Cross’s passionately delivered final speech, in which he endorses the power of love and the importance of old-fashioned family values, might have come out of the recent Presidential campaign.
Scrooged Movie Review: The Original Cast
Bill Murray – The comedy star had already headlined several Hollywood films before playing a TV network executive scrooge in this Dickensian adaptation. After a stint on Saturday Night Live shot Murray to superstardom, he went on to appear in a number of comedy staples, including Stripes, Caddyshack and Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters 2, Groundhog Day, Space Jam, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Jungle Book and Lost in Translation —
for which he scored a best actor Oscar nomination — mark just a few of Murray’s more notable film credits post-1988. He has also returned as host of his alma mater, SNL, five times. Most recently, Murray continued a long relationship with director Wes Anderson by voicing one of his furry friends in 2018’s Isle of Dogs.
Karen Allen – Before Allen starred in Scrooged as Frank’s one that got away, audiences already knew her as Harrison Ford’s love interest, Marion, in George Lucas’ hit Indiana Jones franchise. She reprised her role along with Ford in the 2008 reboot of the saga, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Apart from her famous turns in Scrooged and the Indiana Jones canon, Allen has starred in many more films since the ’70s, including Animal House, The Wanderers, Starman, Malcolm X and the Sandlot. Her latest role was in 2016’s Year by the Sea, directed by Alexander Janko.
John Forsythe – Forsythe was already a Hollywood legend before he became the first ghost to visit Murray’s Frank in Scrooged. Perhaps one of his most iconic roles early in his career was a role in which is was not seen, but heard, as the original Charles Townsend in the hit TV series Charlie’s Angels.
Some of his more notable early film roles include leading man Sam Marlowe in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Trouble With Harry and police agent Alvin Dewey in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. After Scrooged, Forsythe continued his already-illustrious TV career as patriarch Blake Carrington in Dynasty, for which he won multiple Golden Globes. His final role before his death in 2010 was a reprise for Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, starring Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu and Cameron Diaz.
Bobcat Goldthwait – Before Scrooged, Goldthwait first came to fame as a standup comedian, making several cameos in various projects as himself. Scrooged, however, was one of his first major character roles as burned ex-employee Eliot Loudermilk. Since then, Goldthwait has gone on to lend his comedic talent to several movies and TV series, including several voice roles in Disney’s Hercules, Bob’s Burgers and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. Goldthwait also has several directing credits to his name, such as Chapelle’s Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, as well as films like Shakes the Clown, World’s Greatest Dad and God Bless America. His latest endeavor involves directing and producing Bobcat Goldthwait’s Misfits and Monsters for TruTV.
Carol Kane – Kane had already secured an Oscar nomination before coming back from the dead as the Ghost of Christmas Present in Scrooged. Her turn as a troubled Russian immigrant in Hester Street put her on the map with a best actress nom in 1976. Prior to Scrooged, she also went on to star in more iconic films like Annie Hall, When a Stranger Calls and The Princess Bride.
Since the late ’80s, she’s had several live-action and voice roles in film and TV projects like Seinfeld, Family Guy, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, Girls, Phineas and Ferb, Taxi — for which she received two Emmys and Golden Globe nomination — and, most recently, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. She has also starred on Broadway as Madame Morrible in Wicked.
Robert Mitchum – Like Kane, Mitchum had also built up a critically acclaimed career before playing Frank’s boss in Scrooged. In 1947, Mitchum received a supporting actor Oscar nomination for his work in Story of G.I. Joe.
Throughout the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, he starred in a number of classic Hollywood films, including Out of the Past, The Night of the Hunter, The Longest Day, Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison and River of No Return, starring alongside silver screen legends like Marilyn Monroe, Jean Simmons, Susan Hayward, Jane Russell and more. Mitchum continued acting for nearly 10 years after Scrooged, until his death in 1997, starring in films like Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear and Dead Man with Johnny Depp. His final project was the biopic James Dean: Race With Destiny.
Alfre Woodard – By the time Woodard played Frank’s hardworking assistant in Scrooged, she had already scored one supporting actress Oscar nomination for Cross Creek and six Emmy nominations for Hill Street Blues, Words by Heart, St. Elsewhere, Unnatural Causes and L.A. Law.
Some of her more notable work since the late ’80s has included roles in films and TV series like Star Trek, Love & Basketball, A Wrinkle in Time, Desperate Housewives, 12 Years a Slave, Captain America: Civil War, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Empire and Luke Cage. She also scored three Golden Globe nominations for the TV movies Passion Fish, Miss Evers’ Boys and Holiday Heart. Next up, she’ll voice Sarabi in Disney’s 2019 remake of The Lion King.
David Johansen – Far before his turn as the Ghost of Christmas Past in Scrooged, Johansen made a name for himself as the lead singer of the New York Dolls. It wasn’t until the mid-’80s that Johansen broke into the acting business, taking a few roles in small films and TV shows before his big screen break in Scrooged. Though he’s had acting credits since in films and TV series like Oz, Let it Ride and Free Jack, most of his Hollywood contributions have come in the form of soundtracks and performances for projects like Miami Vice, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Simpsons, The Office, Gotham and Kick-Ass. His next appearance will be in the fantasy film Shadow Girl, starring Megan Fox.
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Try National Lampoons Christmas Vacation for more Christmas Movie Fun!
Hilarious National Lampoons’ Christmas Vacation – 1989 (celebratechristmas.co)
