Scrooged, 1988.
Directed by Richard Donner.
Starring Bill Murray, Karen Allen, John Forsythe, Bobcat Goldthwait, Carol Kane, Robert Mitchum, Michael J. Pollard, and Alfre Woodard.
SYNOPSIS:
If Scrooged is on your must-watch holiday movie list, you’ll want this new 4K Ultra HD edition from Paramount, which features a remastered print of the film along with a code for a digital copy and a batch of bonus features that never appeared on a disc before, for whatever reason.
If you haven’t seen Scrooged and the thought of doing so makes you roll your eyes at yet another riff on Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, I can only say that you should give this one a chance. Unlike many retellings of the classic story, this one doesn’t feel the need to replicate the original’s main plot points, although in the end it doesn’t quite hang together as well as it could.
Bill Murray stars as Frank Cross, a greedy executive at a fictional TV network who forces many people to work during the holidays to pull off a live version of A Christmas Carol. He’s as miserly as Ebenezer Scrooge, going so far as to send family and colleagues the cheapest possible Christmas gifts. He also fires poor employee Eliot Loudermilk (Bobcat Goldthwait) for daring to disagree with him, sending the man on a downward, alcohol-fueled spiral.
The night before the big airing of the show, the ghost of Frank’s former mentor, Lew Hayward, appears to him and says three ghosts will visit to help him avoid the same fate he suffered. As in the original story, the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future visit him to show the errors he made when he was younger, the mistakes he’s making now, and his fates and that of others, should he continue on the same course.
As the story unfolds, it’s tempting to assume that this character is a stand-in for Tiny Tim, this one for Bob Cratchit, and so forth, but it’s better to just let the story unfold the way director Richard Donner wanted it to. It doesn’t adhere to the same story beats, but that’s okay because the end result is the same.
Unfortunately, it’s not as funny as it could be, despite Murray’s typical exaggerated comedic style (to be fair, he apparently had a tough time making the movie and didn’t want to be as over-the-top as Donner wanted him to be), and several editing choices give the impression that coverage was missed during filming and had to be glossed over during post-production. As a result, it’s not as good as it could have been, but it’s still a fun ride that’s worth going on this time of year.
This is the movie’s debut on 4K Ultra HD. There’s no Blu-ray disc included, although you will find a code for a digital copy. Nothing new was created for the bonus features, but my understanding is that what’s here wasn’t on the previous Blu-rays (they only included the theatrical trailer, which you don’t find here) and was intended for a DVD edition that never came out. Here’s what you’ll find:
• Audio commentary: Director Richard Donner, who died in 2021, contributes this track, which seems to have been recorded with little preparation on his part. As a result, there’s a lot of silence, along with random observations of what’s onscreen, and not a ton of information about the making of the movie.
• A Christmas to Remember (15 minutes): This is an old school featurette with Donner, Murray, other members of the cast, and screenwriter Mitch Glazer. It’s a quick overview of how the film came to be. (Snarky viewers could say that it has more information than Donner’s commentary track.)
• Updating Ebenezer (13.5 minutes): As the title implies, this is a look at how Dickens’ protagonist was updated for this new version.
• Bringing the Ghosts to Life (10 minutes): How the three ghosts were created in a pre-digital age.
• The Look of Scrooged (6.5 minutes): This movie says “I was filmed in the late 80s” from start to finish, and this is an examination of how the sets were designed and so forth.
• On the Set with Bill Murray (7 minutes): This is some onset footage from two scenes.
• ShoWest Clips with Bill Murray (2 minutes): The two clips found here probably seem strange to younger viewers, but these are the kind of short videos that were made back then to get theater owners interested in booking movies.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Brad Cook
