Down Under!

A couple of things about this Australian issue of Decca's oft-coupled "Mr. Pickwick's Christmas" and "A Christmas Carol" (from an undetermined  year):

First, what's with the crazy looking Marley's Ghost? He seems to be a skeleton and wears a ball and chain. Talk about off-model!

And Scrooge shouldn't be in bed yet!

But most of all: why would they put Charles Laughton's picture on the cover and not Ronald Colman's?

Photogenic-ness was not the criteria!

Meet A & C

Speaking of Charles Laughton, here's a little public service announcement for Christmas Seals featuring him with his co-stars from 1952's "Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd":

An interesting artifact!

What If?

It's not really my intention every time I watch MGM's 1938 version of "A Christmas Carol" to wonder who should have been cast as Ebenezer Scrooge rather than Reginald Owen (since Lionel Barrymore), but I do wonder!

Throw in that I recently was listening to Charles Laughton's 1951 recording of "A Christmas Carol" for RCA Victor on which he did not portray Scrooge and it occurred to me...

What if MGM had cast Mr. Laughton as Scrooge in their movie?

I had mentioned before that Laughton could be very evil (1935's "Mutiny on the Bounty") or kind (1935's "Ruggles of Red Gap) so he could easily handle the before and after Scrooge characterizations.

And since "Mutiny on the Bounty" was an MGM production, their hype machine could say "It's Charles Laughton at his 'Mutiny on the Bounty' evil best!" or "You thought he was mean as Captain Bligh? Wait until you see him as Scrooge!"

If they had gone that route, it would be a bigger production with a longer running time and the story would have more meat and not be so fluffy.

As such, you throw in more of Scrooge's past, such as his doomed engagement to Belle. And who plays Belle? Laughton's real-life wife, Elsa Lanchester!

For visual reference as to how Charles Laughton might have looked as Scrooge, we merely have to turn to 1939's "Jamaica Inn":

That movie takes place in the 1820s, roughly the same period as "A Christmas Carol," so you can totally see it!

While I'm throwing things out there, here's another thought...

Producer Selznick (left) and director Hitchcock.

What if former MGM producer David O. Selznick, who had produced 1935's Dickens blockbusters "A Tale of Two Cities" and "David Copperfield," was involved in the production of a late-1930s "A Christmas Carol" and had imported Alfred Hitchcock to direct it? (Selznick brought Hitch to America to direct "Rebecca" (1940) following "Jamaica Inn," Hitchcock's last British film of the time.)

I can see it all!

Bonus: Charles Laughton - "Mr. Pickwick's Christmas" (Decca Records 1944)

"Mr. Pickwick's Christmas" (1944)
Charles Laughton
Decca Records

Watching "The Pickwick Papers" (1952) naturally put me in a Pickwick mood, so I immediately thought of this 1944 78rpm record album from Decca Records featuring Charles Laughton reading "Mr. Pickwick's Christmas."

This particular recording seems inextricably linked with Ronald Colman's Decca recording of "A Christmas Carol" ever since they were reissued as two sides of an LP in 1950.

It's a lot of fun, so give it a listen:

And don't forget that Charles Laughton recorded his own version of "A Christmas Carol" for RCA Victor in 1951, as discussed here, here, here and here!

"A Christmas Carol" (1951) - Charles Laughton - Part 4

The 1951 recording of "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Laughton for RCA Victor does not have a long running time, only roughly 16 minutes, so they naturally have to cut a lot from the original story.

As always, the question is what they kept, what they cut and whether they added anything different.

I feel that it's good news that nothing was really added. It really seems that Charles Laughton is reading the book to us, as most of what he's reading is verbatim. I could listen to him just reading the book in the manner that Patrick Stewart did so many years later.

So, what do we have?

Side One starts with Mr. Laughton introducing himself then getting down to things. We hear Scrooge interacting with his nephew Fred and reluctantly giving Bob Cratchit the next day off. Scrooge goes home and sees Marley's face in the knocker and Marley's Ghost appears. Marley's Ghost does go "oooohhh" a lot, as I had mentioned. It's a fun ghostly effect for kids.

Side Two has the Ghost of Christmas Past appear and we're told he's dressed in a white tunic and holding a sprig of holly. The spirit takes Scrooge to Fezziwig's warehouse for the Christmas party and Fezziwig's dancing is described in detail. No Dick Wilkins, though! Then we get the breakup scene with Belle. The past is done and the Ghost of Christmas Present calls out to Scrooge as the side ends.

Now Side Three mostly features the Cratchits' Christmas dinner with Tiny Tim and all. The spirit also conducts Scrooge on a whirlwind tour of other Christmas celebrations. This spirit disappears very quickly and Scrooge is confronted by the phantom that is the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come!

Side Four needs to wrap it up so we quickly go from the other businessmen to Scrooge's forlorn body to the Cratchits' house without Tiny Tim to Scrooge seeing his own grave. We know the drill, so Scrooge is back with his bedpost. He talks to the boy out the window and we're told he sends a turkey to Bob Cratchit and goes to church. Scrooge is comically mumbling in the background at times. Scrooge beats Bob to the office next morning, raises his salary and Tiny Tim and Mr. Laughton both say that famous line!

So, a pretty quick trip through the story, but still a lot crammed in.

Lots of fun!

"A Christmas Carol" (1951) - Charles Laughton - Part 3

Charles Laughton looms large over RCA Victor's 1951 recording of "A Christmas Carol," as befits his status as an Oscar winning movie star, but there is a supporting cast.

The record album contains a cast list, which is immensely helpful, as how else would we know who played those parts 70-ish years later?

The other actors are not featured much and they're not particularly famous, but they seem to be a bunch of Charles Laughton's associates.

The Scrooge here is not overly forceful and doesn't really sound old enough. He's played by William Cottrell (33 years old at the time), who had been a student of Laughton's and was later his assistant. He doesn't have roles in all that many movies, but he was in "The Man on the Eiffel Tower" (1949), which starred Charles Laughton. The most fascinating thing about him was that he was at one point married to Morganna, the infamous "Kissing Bandit" of the 1970s!

Also appearing in "The Man on the Eiffel Tower" was William Phipps, who was also a protégé of Laughton's. He plays Fred on the recording. He's in a ton of movies and TV shows from 1947 through 2000 with his credits ranging from providing the speaking voice of Prince Charming in Disney's "Cinderella" (1950) to a featured role in the so-bad-it's-almost-good "Cat-Women of the Moon" (1953)!

Harry Burnett made these puppets for Albert Einstein and Gary Cooper. That's just plain awesome!

Then we have Harry Burnett as Bob Cratchit. I presume this is the puppeteer who was an associate of Elsa Lanchester (who was married to Charles Laughton for many years) in Hollywood's Turnabout Theatre.

Non-puppet Coop gives Laughton his due!

The Ghost of Christmas Past is played by Peter Brocco, who also played a ton of mostly small roles over a along career. He also appeared with Laughton in the movies "Devil and the Deep" from 1932 and "Spartacus" from 1960!

Vic Perrin, a prolific radio and voice actor plays Marley's Ghost. I don't know if he has a specific connection to Charles Laughton, but he does the most "acting" here, but it's mostly going "ooooohhh" in the background - in  case you didn't know he's a ghost!

Among his memorable later voice work was several "Scooby Doo" villains and, best of all, Nomad the space probe on the "Star Trek" episode "The Changeling" from 1967. I would not want to run into Nomad, as I'm sure he'd think I'm guilty of plenty of non-sequiturs!

So it would appear to me that Charles Laughton was pretty much given free reign to cast whomever he wanted for this "A Christmas Carol" project. Most of it consists of him reading from the original text, so it's all good.

Also worth mentioning is the producer of the recording, Steve Carlin. He later had an interesting career in TV, executive producing such shows as "The $64,000 Question," most famous of the rigged quiz shows of the 1950s, as well as Jackie Gleason's "You're in the Picture," infamous as the worst game show ever. The first episode was so bad that for the second (and last) episode, Gleason came on to apologize!

How sweet it is... not!

So, a bunch of colorful characters coming together for kiddie record!

Next, what about the plot?

"A Christmas Carol" (1951) - Charles Laughton - Part 2

If you got a chance to listen to Charles Laughton's 1951 recording of "A Christmas Carol" for RCA Victor, you may have been as surprised as I was that he (SPOILER) does not play Scrooge!

This has a very interesting approach with the star as the narrator but a supporting cast as well. This reminds me most of the 1939 "Campbell Playhouse" broadcast with Orson Welles as narrator, but, of course, that had a strong Scrooge in Lionel Barrymore.

In this case it seems especially unusual to have the narrator say some of Scrooge's lines when there is another actor playing Scrooge.

I think Charles Laughton would have been a really good Scrooge in a big-screen adaptation. He certainly could bring the meanness to it, as most famously evidenced by his portrayal in MGM's 1935 production of "Mutiny on the Bounty." If Bob Cratchit had ever gotten together for a beer with Fletcher Christian and they started complaining about their bad bosses, Bob would have thought he was fortunate!

A good flipside of Charles Laughton's range as an actor is evidenced in anther 1935 film, "Ruggles of Red Gap" from Paramount. He's totally convincing as an English butler out West without a vestige of Captain Bligh in sight.

Throw in "Les Misérables," in which he played Inspector Javert, and 1935 was a really good year!

Laughton's billing: "Co-starring the Mighty 'Mutiny' Man as Captain Kidd"

By 1951, the time of this recording, he was at an interesting career point. The next year he co-starred in "Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd." I love Abbott and Costello and I think Charles Laughton is a blast in that movie, but I can't imagine that he expected to wind up in a movie like that!

Anyway, I like hearing Mr. Laughton read and he's really good at enunciating each word while reading quickly. This needed to be done in order to get as much story as possible into those 16 precious minutes.

I think it's cool that this has a booklet with the text of the recording. The page above seems to indicate that it matches right up. I need to get a complete set of this (at a reasonable price).

The Christmas bells indicating when to turn the page takes me back and I think it's awesome to have the passive aggressive reminder!

If you try to Google "Charles Laughton" and "A Christmas Carol," you'll find that you get many more matches for the Decca Records coupling of Ronald Colman's recording of "A Christmas Carol" and Charles Laughton's "Mr. Pickwick's Christmas." Those two previous recordings were linked the year before (1950) and have remined together ever since!

As a bonus, here's "Mr. Pickwick's Christmas":

My theory is that Decca did so well with that album that RCA decided to fight fire with fire by having Charles Laughton record this set.

Whatever the case, I'm glad they did!

Next, a look at the supporting cast and crew...

"A Christmas Carol" (1951) - Charles Laughton - Part 1

"A Christmas Carol" (1951)
RCA Victor Records
Producer: Steven R. Carlin
Scrooge: Charles Laughton

In order to get away from those subpar animated adaptations of "A Christmas Carol," we go back to the 1950s, 1951 to be precise, for an audio recording from RCA Victor featuring Charles Laughton.

Charles Laughton is, of course, a legendary British actor, with many brilliant performances in classic movies, including his Oscar winning portrayal of the title character in "The Private Life of Henry VIII" from 1933.

The particular item we're looking at is from RCA's "Little Nipper" series of records aimed at the kiddie market. Kid's records were big business in those long ago, pre-home video days, so we have some really good projects that we can still enjoy today. This record set had booklet which you could use to read along, as long as you followed Mr. Laughton's instructions!

This was a two-record set (45 or 78 rpm), so we have four sides, each about four minutes long, so not a lot of time to tell the story.

Give a listen to each side below!

Side 1

Side 2

Side 3

Side 4