A Carol for Another Christmas (1964)

December 13, 2015 9:08 AM

Sterling Hayden and Peter Sellers star in this Rod Serling written and Joseph L. Mankiewicz directed adaptation of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." It's "much darker than the average Christmas special."

This was a special by the Xerox corporation that promoted the UN and international cooperation, in which Three ghosts teach an industrialist the importance of international peacekeeping.
A synopsis and review a Turner Classic Movies, the New York Times, 50 Apocalyptic Films

A Carol for Another Christmas (1964) ***½

A Carol for Another Christmas represents Rod Serling at his most flagrantly messianic. It is shamelessly polemic, thuddingly obvious, and completely without tact or subtlety of any kind. Probably it will convince no one who doesn’t already agree with it, and certainly it was received very poorly in its initial— and for almost 50 years only— broadcast. Naturally it riled up the Birchers whom it overtly ridiculed, but it also took a kicking from liberal critics who rightly considered it both crude and ungenerously one-sided. That was 1964, though, when it was uncontroversial to assert that there was and should be this thing called “society,” in which people would sometimes be expected to put aside their narrow self-interest for the greater and common good. That was before “let people who don’t have health insurance die” became a sufficiently mainstream position to be shouted by spectators at a major political party’s presidential primary debates. That was before the intellectual heirs of the real-life Daniel Grudges came out, in as many words, against the concept of empathy. Unsubtle as it is, the main problem with A Carol for Another Christmas is that it was about five decades ahead of its time.

possible youtube link
This is part of the Holiday Movie Club

posted by the man of twists and turns (3 comments total)

Previously
posted by ckape at 11:38 AM on December 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

Hey cool, I just learned about this movie and suggested it in another thread that may have been a year old. Canistream.it indicates this YouTube link may be the only way to see it right now.
posted by rhizome at 10:08 PM on December 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

Currently streaming in the US on HBO Max
posted by Monochrome at 6:12 PM on December 15, 2021