Changes: Scrooged

Revision as of 02:18, 25 December 2014

Scrooged Poster — The poster for the film's theatrical release.

Scrooged is a 1988 film depicting a modern-day adaptation of A Christmas Carol, produced and directed by Richard Donner. The film stars Bill Murray, with Karen Allen, Bobcat Goldthwait, John Forsythe, Carol Kane, John Houseman, and Robert Mitchum in supporting roles. Murray's brothers, Brian, John, and Joel also appear in the film.

Synopsis

Francis "Frank" Xavier Cross is a conceited, cynical television programming executive who has the position of president for television network IBC. Frank has found great success and wealth but only by becoming cold-hearted and cruel. In the opening scenes, he is seen working out in a room with a border that reads "Cross: (n) A thing they nail people to."

His ruthless concentration on his career has cost him his true love, the warm-hearted Claire Phillips. It has also alienated him from his family, having only an "at arm's length" relationship with his brother James, and ruined any chance of his having a happy and fulfilling life. Frank overworks his assistant Grace Cooley, forcing her to constantly break plans with her family and neglect her mute son Calvin. When a disturbing TV commercial that Frank personally produced is criticized by timid staff member Eliot Loudermilk, Frank responds by firing him on Christmas Eve. Frank's boss Preston Rhinelander comes to Frank's office with an idea about reaching out to the animal audience, and takes the liberty of hiring Frank an assistant, weaselly sycophant Brice Cummings, who is transparently after his job.

When Cross is given the task of heading up a live Christmas Eve broadcast of A Christmas Carol, his life begins to mirror the story he's producing. The decomposing corpse of his mentor, media mogul Lew Hayward who had died of a heart attack several years prior, comes back to visit to tell him the error of his ways, and to announce the impending visitation of three Ghosts.

The Ghost of Christmas Past appears as a loudmouthed New York City cab driver, and takes Frank back to his childhood in 1955 where his mother Doris Cross is watching The Lone Ranger with him, until his drunk and angry father Earl Cross comes home after a hard day of working at the meat packing plant, and gives him a side of veal instead of a choo-choo train for a Christmas present. The ghost then takes him to his late teens in 1968 when he had his first job at the TV station, and 1969 for his anniversary with Claire. The Ghost of Christmas Past finally takes him to 1971, the year in which he chose his job as "Frisbee the Dog" over Claire, and to have dinner with Lew Hayward (who was the president of the network at the time) instead of with friends. The sequence shows how Frank gradually became the man he is in the present, first through his father, who was a blue-collar version of Frank, who in the 1955 scene ranted about how most men at the meatpacking plant are lazy slobs who make up excuses to get out of work, and in the 1971 scene when Frank breaks up with Claire because her friends offered no connections to get ahead.

The Ghost of Christmas Present then appears as a life-size pixie who's cheerful, childlike demeanor offsets her violent behavior; she shows him how Grace's family lives in poverty because of his stinginess and how much his brother misses him.

After the second ghost's visit, Eliot Loudermilk, now deranged and drunk after spending Christmas on the streets, storms the office with a Double-barrel shotgun and tries to murder Frank. The Ghost of Christmas Future, a seven-foot-tall ghoul with a TV screen for a face, appears and shows Frank a future in which Calvin has ended up in a mental hospital, Claire has become as cold and uncaring as he is, and only James and James' wife attend his sparse and sterile cremation.

As he feels his body being burned, Frank finally sees the error of his ways and begs for a second chance. He awakens back in his office, just as the live broadcast is approaching its climax. The reformed Frank rehires Loudermilk at a considerable salary increase, and enlists his help to hijack the live broadcast. Frank steps in front of the rolling studio cameras, and publicly wishes his viewers a Merry Christmas and delivers a manic but heartfelt speech about the true meaning of Christmas. Calvin urges him to add Tiny Tim's phrase, "God bless us, everyone", finally breaking free of his mute condition. Claire appears in the studio and Frank reconciles with her, sharing a romantic kiss as Grace and the other television workers start to sing "Put a Little Love in Your Heart".

Songs

Scrooged Original Motion Picture Soundtrack cover — Scrooged. Soundtrack album by various artists

"Put a Little Love in Your Heart" - performed by Annie Lennox and Al Green
"A Wonderful Life" - performed by Mark Lennon
"Sweetest Thing" - performed by the New Voices of Freedom featuring Adriane McDonald and George Pendergrass
"The Love You Take" - performed by Dan Hartman and Denise Lopez
"Get Up 'n' Dance" - performed by Kool Moe Dee
"We Three Kings of Orient Are" - performed by Miles Davis, Larry Carlton, David Sanborn and Paul Shaffer
"Christmas Must Be Tonight" - performed by Robbie Robertson
"Brown Eyed Girl" - performed by Buster Poindexter
"The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)" - performed by Natalie Cole

Availability

Paramount Home Video made Scrooged available on VHS and Laserdisc in 1989, and later on DVD in 1999. In August of 2006, Paramount announced that they would be releasing a special "Yule Love It! Edition" DVD of Scrooged on October 31st of that year. This DVD release was to include an audio commentary by Richard Donner, Bill Murray's message from the ShoWest exhibitors convention, and the featurettes "A Christmas to Remember", "Updating Ebenezer", "Bringing Ghosts to Life", "The Look of Scrooged", and the two-part "On the Set with Bill Murray". However, for unknown reasons, the "Yule Love It! Edition" DVD was cancelled and never released, and none of the bonus features were included on the film's first Blu-ray release in 2011. A 25th Anniversary Blu-ray/DVD combo pack was released on November 5, 2013.

Cast

Actor	Character
Bill Murray	Francis Xavier "Frank" Cross
Karen Allen	Claire Phillips
John Forsythe	Lew Hayward
John Glover	Brice Cummings
Bobcat Goldthwait	Eliot Loudermilk
David Johansen	The Ghost of Christmas Past
Carol Kane	The Ghost of Christmas Present
Robert Hammond	The Ghost of Christmas Future (uncredited)
Robert Mitchum	Preston Rhinelander
Nicholas Phillips	Calvin Cooley
Michael J. Pollard	Herman
Alfre Woodard	Grace Cooley
Mabel King	Gramma
John Murray	James Cross
Jamie Farr	Jacob Marley
Buddy Hackett	Ebenezer Scrooge
Robert Goulet	Himself
John Houseman	Himself
Lee Majors	Himself
Mary Lou Retton	Herself
Miles Davis Larry Carlton David Sanborn Paul Shaffer	Street musicians
Solid Gold Dancers	Themselves

External links

Scrooged at the Internet Movie Database
Scrooged at Rotten Tomatoes
Scrooged at TV Tropes

@@ Line 18: / Line 18: @@
 When Cross is given the task of heading up a live [[Christmas Eve]] broadcast of ''A Christmas Carol'', his life begins to mirror the story he's producing. The decomposing corpse of his mentor, media mogul Lew Hayward who had died of a heart attack several years prior, comes back to visit to tell him the error of his ways, and to announce the impending visitation of three Ghosts.
-[[The Ghost of Christmas Past]] appears as a loudmouthed New York City cab driver, and takes Frank back to his childhood in 1955 where his mother Doris Cross is watching The Lone Ranger with him, until his drunk and angry father Earl Cross comes home after a hard day of working at the meat packing plant, and gives him a side of veal instead of a choo-choo train for a Christmas present. The ghost then takes him to his late teens in 1968 when he had his first job at the TV station, and 1969 for his anniversary with Claire. The Ghost of Christmas Past finally takes him to 1971, the year in which he chose his job as "Frisbee the Dog" over Claire, and to have dinner with Lew Hayward (who was the president of the network at the time) instead of with friends. The sequence shows how Frank gradually became the man he is in the present.
+[[The Ghost of Christmas Past]] appears as a loudmouthed New York City cab driver, and takes Frank back to his childhood in 1955 where his mother Doris Cross is watching The Lone Ranger with him, until his drunk and angry father Earl Cross comes home after a hard day of working at the meat packing plant, and gives him a side of veal instead of a choo-choo train for a Christmas present. The ghost then takes him to his late teens in 1968 when he had his first job at the TV station, and 1969 for his anniversary with Claire. The Ghost of Christmas Past finally takes him to 1971, the year in which he chose his job as "Frisbee the Dog" over Claire, and to have dinner with Lew Hayward (who was the president of the network at the time) instead of with friends. The sequence shows how Frank gradually became the man he is in the present, first through his father, who was a blue-collar version of Frank, who in the 1955 scene ranted about how most men at the meatpacking plant are lazy slobs who make up excuses to get out of work, and in the 1971 scene when Frank breaks up with Claire because her friends offered no connections to get ahead.
 [[The Ghost of Christmas Present]] then appears as a life-size pixie who's cheerful, childlike demeanor offsets her violent behavior; she shows him how Grace's family lives in poverty because of his stinginess and how much his brother misses him.