Bonus Movie - "tom thumb" (1958)!

Another movie I recently caught on TCM was 1958's "tom thumb" starring Russ Tamblyn as the pint-sized title character.

It's not a bad movie, although it seems pretty dated.

What struck me was that there seemed to be an unusually high number of the cast and crew that were connected to versions of "A Christmas Carol" and/or other projects of note.

The cast supporting American star Russ Tamblyn is mostly British, so maybe it's not too surprising.

Tom's parents are played by Bernard Miles and Jessie Matthews, who pop up here a lot.

Bernard Miles had that 1960 recording on which he played Scrooge, but his performance here reminds me more of his role as "Joe Gargery" in David Lean's 1946 version of "Great Expectations." 

I don't think that Jessie Matthews ever appeared in a Dickens adaptation, but she did co-star with Barry MacKay in three movies in the 1930s, as I frequently point out!

"tom thumb" is 20 years later and Jessie's about 50, but she's still attractive. Her character gets a song and it sounds like Jessie singing, but some (all?) of it was apparently dubbed by future Lawrence Welk "Champagne Lady" Norma Zimmer.

The romantic leads are played by Alan Young and June Thorburn, who also have some interesting connections.

Alan Young, who kinda seems too old for this part, was, of course, the voice of Scrooge McDuck on the original album and animated short "Mickey's Christmas Carol."

And June Thorburn, a very lovely actress who tragically passed away in a plane crash at age 36, had a small role in the 1952 adaptation of "The Pickwick Papers," which also featured Barry MacKay!

"tom thumb" was directed by George Pal, who was famous for his Puppetoons shorts featuring stop-motion animation and Tom interacts with various toys in that style.

One of the toys is the Yawning Man who is voiced by Stan Freberg, who played a modern Scrooge on his brilliant Capitol Records single "Green Chri$tma$" from 1958!

That's three Scrooges!

Also of note is that a couple of songs from "tom thumb" were written by the team of Janice Torre and Fred Spielman, the talents behind "The Stingiest Man in Town" - pretty cool!

You know, I'd almost say I enjoyed making these connections more than I did the movie itself!

McDuck!

 Here's another cool autographed item:

Alan Young did such a great job voicing Scrooge McDuck in "Mickey's Christmas Carol!"

Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983) - Part 3

"Mickey's Christmas Carol" from 1983 is a reasonably faithful version of the classic story. It features most of the characters and a lot of the incidents from the book.

This is a cartoon through and through, though, and the story really serves as a framework for the gags that come fast and furious. It's not exactly a spoof, but everything is exaggerated. While there are a couple of dramatic moments, this is not "Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol!"

I wouldn't say there are exactly spoilers ahead, as we all know the basic story, but if you haven't seen this cartoon, by all means do so, as I'll be discussing some of the jokes.

After a pretty cool establishing shot of London, Scrooge enters his office. A bit of a running gag is that he keeps having to knock the snow from the sign, as it covers his name, but not Marley's, which is scratched out.

The opening scenes actually get in all of the essential story elements.

Scrooge gives Bob Cratchit a hard time about using coal, but Bob shows Scrooge that his ink is frozen, which gives a good indication of the exaggerated tone.

Scrooge's nephew Fred comes in to invite him to Christmas dinner and two gentlemen come in collecting for charity.

I absolutely love the squelch that Scrooge uses on the charity collectors and I will say no more in case you didn't heed my spoiler warning!

Scrooge goes home and sees Marley's face in the door knocker. This is perhaps the only version in which Scrooge squeezes Marley's nose!

There's some funny business with shadows going up the staircase before Scrooge reaches his chambers. Marley's Ghost comes and manages to warn Scrooge and tell him the other spirits are coming, although he is quite... Goofy!

The Ghost of Christmas Past comes along and he's pretty good at needling Scrooge.

We only have time for a couple of scenes from the past, but they both involve the Belle character, named Isabel here.

The first is Fezziwig's Christmas party. As is so common, she's at the party with young Scrooge. I wonder if there are more adaptations in which Belle (or whatever she may be called) is at the party than ones in which she is not.

Next is the breakup scene. The spirit mentions that this was 10 years later. Always interesting when little details like that are added. A bit of a twist here is that Isabel was still hoping to marry Scrooge until he does something very Scroogey. This is for comedic effect and is funny.

The Ghost of Christmas Present is next up and we get a lot of wackiness from him.

The only scene we get in the present is the Cratchit family's Christmas dinner. Tiny Tim is very sweet and thoughtful. He's the one who says they should thank Mr. Scrooge for the feast.

We don't get the chance to go to Fred's house, so we really don't know much about him, even whether he's married or not.

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come appears next and he and Scrooge are in a graveyard where they see the Cratchits without, of course, Tiny Tim. This is handled extremely sensitively, which is a contrast to the mostly jokey tone of the rest of the show.

Scrooge sees his own grave being dug and is eventually pushed into it by the talking, cigar-smoking spirit!

But he wakes up back in his own bedroom and is ready to change his ways. He runs into Fred and the charity guys when he's on his way to Bob Cratchit's house.

That's another frequent change found in a lot of adaptations - Scrooge going to visit the Cratchits on Christmas Day.

He has a big bag of presents, including the turkey and makes Bob his partner. Happy ending!

So, despite the very wacky cartoony tone, this version actually gets in a lot of the story. I'm not sure if you already need to be familiar with the story to really follow what's happening, but it certainly helps.

It's hard to believe this came out 36 years ago, but I think it really holds up well. The classic cartoon stars are as appealing as ever and the story is timeless!

Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983) - Part 2

One of the things that makes "Mickey's Christmas Carol" so much fun is that in addition to the big Disney cartoon stars in the cast, there are a host of others along for the ride.

I look at this as taking place in the Mickeyverse, with the main group (Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy) going over to England to shoot this cartoon, where they met up with the casts of "Robin Hood" (1973) and "The Wind in the Willows" segment of "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mister Toad" (1949).

In the lead role, of course, is Scrooge McDuck.  Alan Young (star of TV's "Mr. Ed") does a great job with his voice. He had originated the voice characterization on a 1974 Disneyland Records with the awkward title "An Adaptation of Dickens' Christmas Carol Performed by the Walt Disney Players." Phew!

Scrooge McDuck, like Quincy Magoo, has a "real-life" nephew. Fortunately for Mr. McDuck, his nephew Donald is a much better actor than Mr. Magoo's nephew Waldo. So, we have Donald Duck as Fred. What's really great is that Clarence Nash, who created Donald's voice back in back in 1934 was able to play Donald one more time here!

One more Duck has a featured role: Daisy. She plays the Belle role, named Isabel here. Since she was committed to that role, there was no one available to play Fred's wife, so we don't know if Fred is married or not.

Mickey Mouse has his name in the title, befitting his superstar status, but he has a supporting role here as Bob Cratchit. That's probably the second biggest part.

His girlfriend Minnie Mouse plays Mrs. Cratchit, which Minnie must like, as she finally at least gets to act as Mickey's wife! She does not have any lines in the show.

Mickey conveniently has a couple of nephews, as so many cartoon stars do. Apparently Morty plays Tiny Tim and Ferdie plays the other Cratchit boy, perhaps Peter. Whatever the case, this is probably the mst adorable Tiny Tim ever!

Minnie herself has a couple of nieces, one of whom plays the Cratchits' daughter. It could be Melody or Minnie playing Martha or Belinda.

Goofy as Marley's Ghost tells Scrooge to expect three spirits!

Goofy appears as Marley's Ghost. He was probably cast in that role because he looks the part, but his genial nature doesn't make him seem that he would've swindled widows and such as Scrooge says!

A scene from "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mister Toad."

The cast members of the earlier "Wind in the Willows" adaptation get some good parts here to help give a little British feel to the proceedings with so many American cartoon stars involved.

Water Rat and Mole are really well-cast as the gentlemen attempting to collect for charity.

Mr. Toad makes a great Fezziwig. He has the look and temperament. He doesn't have any lines, but plays the fiddle at his party.

And a couple of the weasels make appropriately sinister gravediggers in the Christmas Future segment.

We can also spot Angus McBadger from the Mr. Toad gang at Fezziwig's party and Cyril the horse appears with Fred (Donald) at the end.

Grandma Duck also joins in the fun!

In keeping with the British feel, several members of the "Robin Hood" cast pop up as extras.

The three spirits are all from the Mickeyverse and are also well-cast.

Jiminy Cricket, breakout star of "Pinnochio" (1940) plays the Ghost of Christmas Past. His experience with acting as Pinnochio's conscience serves him well here. For a little guy, he has always had a huge presence in various media.

The Ghost of Christmas Present is supposed to be a giant, and they already  had one on the payroll in the "person" of Willie from the "Mickey and the Beanstalk" segment of "Fun and Fancy Free" (1947). He seems to mix up his lines from the two roles a bit, but he's probably still rattled from that fall from the clouds and he never could pronounce pistachio anyway! Jiminy Cricket introduces and appears in "Fun and Fancy Free," so he knew already had worked with Willie prior to this production.

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is the scariest spirit of all, so who better to play that part than Pete, Mickey's longtime adversary. He's the rare G of CYTC who speaks and maybe the only ever to smoke a cigar. But who's gonna tell Pete there's no smoking on the set?

There are a lot of other classic Disney characters in cameos, which adds to the fun.

So, we have a great cast assembled. What kind of script were they given to work with?