Author: chimesfreedom

Editor-in-chief, New York.

A Christmas Carol: Dickens, Edison, Sim, and the Fonz

Charles DickensOn December 17, 1843, London publishing house Chapman & Hall published a novella called A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas.  The novella, by Charles Dickens, would become a classic.

Charles Dickens had already found success from writing projects, including The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1836), Oliver Twist (1838) and Nicholas Nickleby (1839). His new book, which he only started writing three months earlier in September 1843, was an immediate success, and many today credit it with reviving Christmas traditions in Victorian England.

We now know the book simply as A Christmas Carol. While it may seem odd that a book about ghosts would become a Christmas classic (instead of a Halloween story), Dickens was not the only one telling yuletide ghost stories. In Victorian England, it was a tradition to tell ghost stories around the fire on Christmas Eve. I guess many places still have that tradition, but it is now called, “watching A Christmas Carol on television.”

Adaptations of “A Christmas Carol”

Soon after the novella was published, people began adapting the story for theater productions. Dickens himself often gave readings of the book throughout his lifetime.

As technology changed, there were adaptations for radio and screens. Thomas Edison created an early silent version of the story in 1910.

One of the most famous movie versions of the book — and the most highly regarded in many quarters — is 1951’s Scrooge, starring Alastair Sim. Sim, who was born in Edinburgh in 1900 and starred in a number of projects on stage and screen before his death in 1976, had the perfect voice and face for Mr. Scrooge.

And now with modern technology, we can add the tradition of watching Scrooge on the Internet.

Other famous versions of the movie feature George C. Scott, Jim Carrey, and Albert Finney as Scrooge. The Alistair Sim one remains my favorite.

An American Christmas Carol

But I must admit I have a soft spot for a 1979 made-for-television movie called An American Christmas Carol, starring Fonzie himself, Henry Winkler as the Scrooge character named Benedict Slade.

Maybe I was at an impressionable age when I first saw An American Christmas Carol. Or maybe I liked the way it put a new twist on an old story by setting it during the Depression in New England.

You also may watch An American Christmas Carol below.

No matter who is your favorite Scrooge, may the future find that it always be said of him (or her), “that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!”

What is your favorite version of A Christmas Carol? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Peter O’Toole and Orson Welles Discuss “Hamlet”

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    We are sad to hear of the passing of the great actor Peter O’Toole. One need only to watch the classic Lawrence of Arabia (1962) to see O’Toole’s talent. But it is easy to forget the intelligence of some of the great classic actors. In the following video, O’Toole and Orson Welles discuss William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet in a type of intellectual conversation we do not see enough of on television. Thank goodness YouTube has something besides cat videos.

    The video excerpt is from the October 1963 episode of the BBC program Monitor, which ran from 1958 through 1965. The episode also features the series host, Huw Wheldon. In addition to Wheldon, Welles, and O’Toole, actor Ernest Milton contributes to the conversation too. According to YouTube, at the time of this video, O’Toole was playing Hamlet at the National Theatre in a production directed by Laurence Olivier. RIP.

    What is your favorite Peter O’Toole performance? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Glenn Miller’s Disappearance

    Glenn MillerOn December 15, 1944, trombonist and bandleader Glenn Miller got on a single-engine aircraft near London to fly to France. Somewhere over the English Channel, though, the plane went down and was never recovered. Miller was 40 years old.

    Miller had left behind his successful career in 1942 to join the United States Air Force during World War II. After basic training, he formed the Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band, playing for troops to boost morale. He took the flight in 1944 to play for soldiers who had helped liberate France. Some attribute bad weather to the plane crash, while others have argued that bombs jettisoned from Allied planes may have accidentally hit Miller’s plane.

    Miller had a number of popular swing hits that established a special sound for the Glenn Miller Orchestra. But when most people think of Glenn Miller, the first tunes that comes up are “Moonlight Serenade” and “In the Mood” (which also played an important role in a book recently reviewed here, Stephen King’s 11/22/63.) So, while we remember the great loss to popular music on this date, we also remember the great joy (and service) Miller gave us.

    Photo via public domain.

    What is your favorite Glenn Miller performance? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    All-Star “Fairytale of New York” on Jimmy Fallon

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    On a recent Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Sam Beam from Iron & Wine joined Calexico for a rousing version of The Pogues holiday classic, “Fairytale of New York” (a song discussed in a previous Chimesfreedom post about depressing holiday songs). As if that were not enough, Glen Hansard and Kathleen Edwards joined in the fun too. Check it out. [February 2014 Update: The video is no longer available from NBC, so below is an amateur video of the same group performing the song at the WWFUV Holiday Cheer Concert.]

    Iron & Wine, Calexico, Kathleen Edwards, and Glen Hansard recently played together, including a performance of “Fairytale of New York,” at a Holiday Cheer benefit concert in New York.

    What is your favorite “sad” holiday song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Mistakes in “Back to the Future”?

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    What is your favorite mistake in “Back to the Future”? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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