A Christmas Carol is my favourite story of all time: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. Quite why I have decided this December to subject myself each day to one of twenty four filmed or animated versions (my offbeat version of an advent calendar) and report on them for my two dear readers is a conundrum not even the all-seeing, all-knowledgeable spirits of Christmas could fathom...or phantom out. It could be the heart-warming timelessness of Dickens' moral tale that keeps studios coming back to this story time and time again, or it could just be that the copyright has long since expired. Wherever possible there are links on each posting to allow you to see the version for yourself. Consider yourself warned, some are better than others!

Wednesday 9 December 2009

Sid James Stars in 'Carry On Christmas 1969'

1969 was a vintage year for the Carry On franchise.  Well, 'Carry On Camping' became the UK's highest grossing film of the year even if 'Carry On Again Doctor' prove to be one sequel too far.  Some of the gang's biggest names celebrated with a made-for-TV special that saw leather-faced favourite Sid James don the nightcap for a turn as Ebeezer Scrooge, essentially a conduit between three loose Victorian / Christmas based sketches.

After a short introduction including Bernad Bresslaw's gentle giant Bob Cratchit mistakenly receiving long-johns as "something to warm the family this Christmas" after an impassioned speech to his creator, Sid's Scrooge takes to bed, only to be visited by Charles Hawtrey's Ghost of Christmas Past.  Severe script licence allows the Ghost to transport Sid back one whole year to a spurious sketch involving Dr Frank N. Stein, the punchline to which is basically that his monster falls in love with him.

Billed as 'Special Guest Star', Frankie Howerd steals the show of 'Christmas Present' after a brief introduction by Barbara Windsor's Ghost.  Riffing with the audience as usual, he breathes real life into an over-amourous poet Robert Browing, keen to have it away with a light-headed Hattie Jacques right under the nose of her over-protective father Terry Scott.  Yes, I know, a strange premise - but one that generates plenty of laughs.

Finally, most of the cast reconvene in pantoville for Cinderella as you've never seen it before introduced by Bernard Bresslaw's "groovy" Ghost of Christmas Future.  I guess nobody had the heart to tell them that even by the late sixties that was no longer a look of the present, let alone the future.  Barbara Windsor plays Cinderella, mistreated by her ugly sisters Terry Scott and a particularly putrid Peter Butterworth, but with a good friend in Charles Hawtrey's Buttons who seems to have turned up to the wrong panto.  Frankie Howerd returns as The Fairy Godmother (see what they've done there?) and once again the scene finishes with big laughs about unrequited homosexual attraction.  Well, it was 1969.

Certainly not a vintage portrayal of the trials of Ebeneezer Scrooge, Carry On's tribute to 'A Christmas Carol' is very thin on the ground and not to be recommeneded to Dickens fans.  Fans of double entendre, slapstick and politically incorrect humour should lap it up though.  Thankfully I am one and I do.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87Ps6FTMzdA 
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3x1apK2eNA 
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEWGaRey_pE 
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuJGQYrv2BE 
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTpdiAWjiD8 
Part 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2r4HItU6BU

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