LEVINE AND KURTZMAN'S "CHRISTMAS CAROL"

Here's a novelty that I didn't know existed before: a "Christmas Carol" parody written by Harvey Kurtzman and drawn by caricaturist David Levine. It appeared in Esquire sometime in the early sixties.

It's not Levine's best work, and Kurtzman's seen better days but, c'mon, any collaboration by talents like these demands a viewing. BTW, click to enlarge.

It's eerie to see Levine doing comics. Lots of famous illustrators came to grief in the comics medium. Evidently sequential storytelling requires a knack that's rarer than commonly supposed.

Then again, you could argue that this is a parody of comics in general as well as of the Christmas Carol in particular. It probably looked a lot better on slick magazine paper than on the net, and it probably made a nice visual counterpoint to the photography in the rest of the magazine.

I'm amazed at how well the formal, standard-font lettering works in the word balloons, and how the borderless panels fit Levine's style so well. Elder did borderless panels for Humbug and the same technique didn't work for him.

"THE CHRISTMAS CAROL": TWO VERSIONS

I got an interesting Christmas present in my stocking this year: The 1935 Seymour Hicks version of Dickens' "Christmas Carol." What a treat! It's not a good film, and Hicks is a terrible Scrooge,  but seeing what this film did wrong made me realize what the 1951 Alister Sims version did right, so I was glad to have gotten it. If you're curious to see what I'm talking about, then read on.

For me the fascinating thing about the Hicks version (called "Scrooge") is that the mistakes it makes are ones I might have made myself if I'd directed it. It's like seeing someone fall down a manhole when they stepped into the very place I was going to step.  But those mistakes aren't evident at the start. The film begins just fine with grand and ominous music which turns into "Hark the Herald Angels Sing." Well, you can't argue with that. So far, so good.

Then we establish old London with a shot of the rooftops at night. No narration. The grand orchestral version of "Hark" is replaced with a cheesier version done by street musicians, and that motivates a pan down to Scrooge's office. A natural sequence of events you say but...uhoh...I'm already feeling antsy. Something's gone amiss. But what? The move seems logical enough.

Inside Scrooge's office we slowly dolly up to his back. The filmmaker wants to tease us with a back shot that doesn't reveal yet...a standard trick...but it's not working! Geez, I'm getting itchy, just thinking about it. Something is terribly wrong!

The camera slowly swings around and shows us Cratchit at his desk, struggling to keep warm. In the minutes that follow he tries to sneak some coal into the stove and Scrooge finally turns and yells at him. Once again we have what seems like a natural sequence of events...so why is it so screamingly wrong!?

I could go on like this, but instead I'll ask a question: the filmmaker obviously believes the relationship between Scrooge and Cratchit is the central conflict in the film. Do you agree?

And another quetion: Seymour Hicks serves up a Scrooge who's an elderly, one-dimensional miser. Is that really what Dickens had in mind? [Jenny Lerew makes an interesting answer in the comments to the previous post.]

I infinitely prefer the 1951 Alister Sims version, which in America is known as "The Christmas Carol." It begins with a page from Dickens' book (above) and this time there's a narrator. He says, "Old Marley was dead as a doornail. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing meaningful can come of the story I'm going to relate."

That's a marvelously playful beginning! The beautiful words inform us that this is a story which will be constructed with bricks of virtuoso dialogue and showmanship. The Hicks film attempted to make a conventional drama out of the story. Big mistake! Christmas Carol is a drama alright, but it's also a performance piece, a platform for unforgetable images and wit, a poetic edifice, a vehicle for word music. it's more than drama. All my favorite stories are like that, including cartoon stories.

Inside the stock exchange (above0 Scrooge walks up to camera as the narrator explains that "The register of Marley's burial was signed by Scrooge, and Scrooge's name was good on the Exchange for anything he chose to put his hand to." That's a beautiful sentence, isn't it? Anyway, he's stopped by two business men who inquire if he's leaving early because it's Christmas Eve. Scrooge responds with wonderful "humbug"-type dialogue and storms out.

I like the idea of beginning the story in a social setting, and especially one as formal and institutional as the stock exchange. The setting makes fills us with wonder that mankind can organize itself to accomplish great things, and yet still be moved to celebrate deeply sentimental holidays like Christmas.

The scene also introduces us to Scrooge, who far from being a rigid old miser, is a witty warrior ready to do battle with the sea of idiots he believes surround him. And I like the fact that Sims is a young man playing an old man. The role demands an actor who can plausibly seem to possess boundless energy if only he'd remove the obstacles that confine it.

Outside (above), Scrooge is acousted by a guy who begs more time to pay his debts. If Scrooge won't give him an extention he and his wife will have to go to debtor's prison.  The back and forth is so skillfully and musically done, and Scrooge's "humbug" dialogue is so funny, that the scene is easily elevated into a set piece. Arguably the scene inside the exchange was a near set piece, too. Dickens loves his set pieces. The film has barely started and we've already had two...but hold your hat! Another one is on the way, the best one in the whole film.

I refer of course to the one where the two public-spirited men hit up Scrooge for a donation for the poor. It's the most memorable thing in the film. Don't ever let anybody tell you that best scenes should be saved for the later part of a story. Set-ups are almost always the most important part of a story, and best scenes are used to greatest advantage there.

There's more to say, but I guess that's all there's room for. Soon I'll put up the Theory Corner Store where I'll sell pamphlets covering subjects like this in more detail than I'm able to do here.  The price will be low enough that you'll be to afford it even if you're living in a cardboard box, and have to read with a flashlight.

BTW: My friend Byron Vaughns is selling off part his comic collection. He tells me he's parting with his vintage HAHA and GIGGLE comics, some for as low as 5 bucks. I haven't seen them, but these titles are highly regarded by animation artists. Check out the list on his site:

http://www.byronvaughns.com/comic_book_sales.html

"CAPTAIN MURDERER" BY CHARLES DICKENS

CAPTAIN MURDERER

A Short Story by Charles Dickens

If we all knew our own minds (in a more enlarged sense than the popular acceptation of that phrase), I suspect we should find our nurses responsible for most of the dark corners we are forced to go back to, against our wills.

The first diabolical character who intruded himself on my peaceful youth was a certain Captain Murderer. This wretch must have been an offshoot of the Blue Beard family, but I had no suspicion of the consanguinity in those times. His warning name would seem to have awakened no general prejudice against him, for he was admitted into the best society and possessed immense wealth. Captain Murderer's mission was matrimony, and the gratification of a cannibal appetite with tender brides. On his marriage morning, he always caused both sides of the way to church to be planted with curious flowers; and when his bride said, "Dear Captain Murderer, I never saw flowers like these before: what are they called?" he answered, "They are called Garnish for house-lamb," and laughed at his ferocious practical joke in a horrid manner, disquieting the minds of the noble bridal company, with a very sharp show of teeth, then displayed for the first time. He made love in a coach and six, and married in a coach and twelve, and all his horses were milk-white horses with one red spot on the back which he caused to be hidden by the harness. For, the spot would come there, though every horse was milk-white when Captain Murderer bought him. And the spot was young bride's blood. (To this terrific point I am indebted for my personal experience of a shudder and cold beads on the forehead.)

When Captain Murderer had made an end of feasting and revelry, and had dismissed the noble guests, and was alone with his wife on the day month after their marriage, it was his whimsical custom to produce a golden rolling-pin and a silver pie-board. Now, there was this special feature in the Captain's courtships, that he always asked if the young lady could make pie-crust; and if she couldn't by nature or education, she was taught. Well. When the bride saw Captain Murderer produce the golden rolling-pin and silver pie-board, she remembered this, and turned up her laced-silk sleeves to make a pie. The Captain brought out a silver pie-dish of immense capacity, and the Captain brought out flour and butter and eggs and all things needful, except the inside of the pie; of materials for the staple of the pie itself, the Captain brought out none. Then said the lovely bride, "Dear Captain Murderer, what pie is this to be?" He replied, "A meat pie." Then said the lovely bride, "Dear Captain Murderer, I see no meat." The Captain humorously retorted, "Look in the glass." She looked in the glass, but still she saw no meat, and then the Captain roared with laughter, and suddenly frowning and drawing his sword, bade her roll out the crust. So she rolled out the crust, dropping large tears upon it all the time because he was so cross, and when she had lined the dish with crust and had cut the crust all ready to fit the top, the Captain called out, "I see the meat in the glass!" And the bride looked up at the glass, just in time to see the Captain cutting her head off; and he chopped her in pieces, and peppered her, and salted her, and put her in the pie, and sent it to the baker's, and ate it all, and picked the bones.

Captain Murderer went on in this way, prospering exceedingly, until he came to choose a bride from two twin sisters, and at first didn't know which to choose. For, though one was fair and the other dark, they were both equally beautiful. But the fair twin loved him, and the dark twin hated him, so he chose the fair one. The dark twin would have prevented the marriage if she could, but she couldn't; however, on the night before it, much suspecting Captain Murderer, she stole out and climbed his garden wall, and looked in at his window through a chink in the shutter, and saw him having his teeth filed sharp. Next day she listened all day, and heard him make his joke about the house-lamb. And that day month, he had the paste rolled out, and cut the fair twin's head off, and chopped her in pieces, and peppered her, and salted her, and put her in the pie, and sent it to the baker's, and ate it all, and picked the bones.

Now, the dark twin had had her suspicions much increased by the filing of the Captain's teeth, and again by the house-lamb joke. Putting all things together when he gave out that her sister was dead, she divined the truth, and determined to be revenged. So, she went up to Captain Murderer's house, and knocked at the knocker and pulled at the bell, and when the Captain came to the door, said: "Dear Captain Murderer, marry me next for I always loved you and was jealous of my sister." The Captain took it as a compliment, and made a polite answer, and the marriage was quickly arranged. On the night before it, the bride again climbed to his window, and again saw him having his teeth filed sharp. At this sight she laughed such a terrible laugh at the chink in the shutter, that the Captain's blood curdled, and he said: "I hope nothing has disagreed with me!" At that, she laughed again, a still more terrible laugh, and the shutter was opened and search made, but she was nimbly gone, and there was no one. Next day they went to church in a coach and twelve, and were married. And that day month, she rolled the pie-crust out, and Captain Murderer cut her head off, and chopped her in pieces, and peppered her, and salted her, and put her in the pie, and sent it to the baker's, and ate it all, and picked the bones.

But before she began to roll out the paste she had taken a deadly poison of a most awful character, distilled from toads' eyes and spiders' knees; and Captain Murderer had hardly picked her last bone, when he began to swell, and to turn blue, and to be all over spots, and to scream. And he went on swelling and turning bluer, and being more all over spots and screaming, until he reached from floor to ceiling and from wall to wall; and then, at one o'clock in the morning, he blew up with a loud explosion. At the sound of it, all the milk-white horses in the stables broke their halters and went mad, and then they galloped over everybody in Captain Murderer's house (beginning with the family blacksmith who had filed his teeth) until the whole were dead, and then they galloped away.

The End

THREE OF MY FAVORITE CLASSIC BOOKS

Here's the book (above) that influenced me more than any other: "Hamlet." I'd read Shakespeare in school and liked it but never gave a second thought to it after the assignments were turned in. One day, when I was 17 or 18, a friend and I took in Olivier's Hamlet at a revival house. I wasn't expecting much, I was just curious to see why other people liked it. Well, the curtain went up and I've never been the same since. When the film ended I could hardly stand. My friend and I walked home in silence. Neither one of us had the words to articulate the new and wonderfull thoughts the film had put in our heads.

I can truthfully say that I've never had a day in my adult life when I didn't think, at least briefly, about this play. I compare every book, film, song, bubble gum comic, and conversation, to it. It's the standard that I use to determine if the media I'm thinking about is "good enough." Actually I had one other experience like this, which was when I saw Clampett's "Great Piggy Bank Robbery" for the first time, but we're talking about books so I'll leave that for another day.

Like everyone else I've been reduced to tears by this story (above) many times. The candlestick scene is one of the greatest in all of literature. The story is especially important to me because I think it revealed my own true self to me. Before I read this I used to imitate what other people did and seemed to have success with, even if it felt hard-edged and out of character to me. After reading the story I realized that I was a Hugo kind of character, sentimental and earnest, and that life strategies that worked for other personality types probably wouldn't work for me. Frankly if I could chose my personality I think I'd pick something different but these are the cards I've been dealt and Hugo taught me to accept them.

"David Copperfield" (above) and Boswell's "Life of Johnson" (below) both taught me the importance of character in all the meanings of that word. One sense requires a layering and a balancing of interesting traits that don't always fit comfortably together. The other sense indicates reliability and guts. I don't have these characteristics but I'm grateful for the push in that direction provided by these books.

I also like the way England is described in these books. You get a sense of a rough, brutal place which is somehow struggling to give birth to something really impressive and worthwhile.

Well, that's it. I should add that I picked these pictures from the internet based soley on the attractiveness of the covers. If you're going to read these books then you should shop around for the the best type styles, editing and translations. For the Boswell book start with the part about a third of the way through where Boswell meets Johnson then, when you've read to the end, go back and read the first third. You might want a slight abridgement of the Hugo story.