This is really a wonderful production and very well done. It's a serious take on the story - I doubt it could be made today.
Fredric March inhabits Scrooge. It's a performance unlike any other Scrooge or any other by March. Understated but not boring. I really was surprised by just how well he does. Rathbone is also an understated and pitiful ghost of Marley. His screen time is short, but effective. He doesn't try to make the most of it, if you catch my drift. He plays his part effectively and is gone. Today, any director working with an artist of Rathbone's talent and notoriety would feel obliged to somehow work his presence into additional scenes. That doesn't happen here, and it's refreshing.
This production is quite daring in what it attempts and achieves. Without giving anything away, I will say that the very end of the show is unprecedented in the demands it puts on March in an extended shot that would never be attempted on TV these days.
The rest of the cast is also very good. There's not a weak link. No mugging from anybody, either.
Bernard Hermann's music is just perfect in that it foots the bill without drawing undue attention to itself. It tends to the operatic, or maybe, operetta-ish. In addition to the incidental/background music (most of which has a note of foreboding to it), it's striking to realize that all of the music is original. That includes Tiny Tim's Xmas song (reprised at the end by the chorus), a duet for the young Scrooge (tenor) and his fiancé (soprano) (here called Belle, and sung by a young SOPRANO Marilyn Horne), a buffo baritone song for the Ghost of Xmas present (which turns up later in the show with a few catches sung by none other than Fredric March), and a Christmas Carol sung at the beginning of the production by the chorus (the Roger Wagner Chorale).
The DVD itself is very basic. Contrary to the blurb on the DVD case, there are no interactive menus and there is no intro by William Lundigan included in the video. The disc goes in your player and one option comes up - Play. I watched it through my BluRay player, so I don't know if there are options available if played in a DVD player.
Finally, I have to believe this show was shot on film and isn't drawn from kinescopes. The quality of the picture is simply too clear and steady to not have been a film production. It was shot by DesiLu, who I believe were using film on "I Love Lucy," so why not for this production as well?
Fredric March inhabits Scrooge. It's a performance unlike any other Scrooge or any other by March. Understated but not boring. I really was surprised by just how well he does. Rathbone is also an understated and pitiful ghost of Marley. His screen time is short, but effective. He doesn't try to make the most of it, if you catch my drift. He plays his part effectively and is gone. Today, any director working with an artist of Rathbone's talent and notoriety would feel obliged to somehow work his presence into additional scenes. That doesn't happen here, and it's refreshing.
This production is quite daring in what it attempts and achieves. Without giving anything away, I will say that the very end of the show is unprecedented in the demands it puts on March in an extended shot that would never be attempted on TV these days.
The rest of the cast is also very good. There's not a weak link. No mugging from anybody, either.
Bernard Hermann's music is just perfect in that it foots the bill without drawing undue attention to itself. It tends to the operatic, or maybe, operetta-ish. In addition to the incidental/background music (most of which has a note of foreboding to it), it's striking to realize that all of the music is original. That includes Tiny Tim's Xmas song (reprised at the end by the chorus), a duet for the young Scrooge (tenor) and his fiancé (soprano) (here called Belle, and sung by a young SOPRANO Marilyn Horne), a buffo baritone song for the Ghost of Xmas present (which turns up later in the show with a few catches sung by none other than Fredric March), and a Christmas Carol sung at the beginning of the production by the chorus (the Roger Wagner Chorale).
The DVD itself is very basic. Contrary to the blurb on the DVD case, there are no interactive menus and there is no intro by William Lundigan included in the video. The disc goes in your player and one option comes up - Play. I watched it through my BluRay player, so I don't know if there are options available if played in a DVD player.
Finally, I have to believe this show was shot on film and isn't drawn from kinescopes. The quality of the picture is simply too clear and steady to not have been a film production. It was shot by DesiLu, who I believe were using film on "I Love Lucy," so why not for this production as well?
