Although they had but that moment left the school behind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city, where shadowy passengers passed and repassed; where shadowy carts and coaches battled for the way, and all the strife and tumult of a real city were. It was made plain enough, by the dressing of the shops, that here it was Christmas again; but it was evening, and the streets were lighted up.
The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked Scrooge if he knew it.
“Know it!” said Scrooge. “Was I apprenticed here?”
They went in. At the sight of an old gentleman in a welch wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been two inches taller, he must have knocked his head against the ceiling, Scrooge cried in great excitement.
“Why, it’s old Fezziwig! Bless his heart; it’s Fezziwig alive again!”
Old Fezziwig aid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his organ of benevolence; and called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice: :Ho ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!”
Scrooge’s former self, now grown a young man, came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow-‘prentice.
“Dick Wilkins, to be sure!” said Scrooge to the Ghost. “Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!”
“Ho ho, my boys!” said Fezziwig. “No more work tonight. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let’s have the shutters up,” cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of his hands, “before a man can say, Jack Robinson!”
You wouldn’t believe hoe those two fellows went at it! They charged into the street with the shutters—one, two, three—had ‘e, up in their places—four, five, six—barred ‘em and pinned ‘em—seven, eight, nine—and came back before you could have got to twelve, panting like racehorses.
“Hilli-ho!” cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk, with wonderful agility. “Clear away, my lads, and let’s have lots of room here! Hill-ho, Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer!”
Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn’t have cleared away, or couldn’t have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done in a minute. Every moveable was pushed off, as if it were dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor was swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and bright a ball-room as you would desire to see upon a winter’s night.
In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the baker. In came the cook, with her brother’s particular friend, the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was suspected of not having board enough from his master; trying to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress. In they all came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went, twenty couples at once, hands half round and back again the other way; down the idle and up again; rund and round in various stages of affectionate grouping, old top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top couple starting off again, as soon as they got there; all top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them. When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, “Well done!” and the fiddler plunged his face into a pot of porter, especially provided for that purpose. But scorning rest upon his reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home, exhausted, on a shutter; and he were a bran-new man resolved to best him out of sight, or perish.
There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold NBoiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the evening came after the Roast and the Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind! The sort of man who knew his business better than you or I could have told him!) struck up “Sir Roger de Coverley”. Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; three or four and twenty pair of partners; people who were not to be trifled with; people who WOULD dance, and had no notion of walking.
But if they had been twice as many: ah, four times: old Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would Mrs. Fezziwig. As to HER, she was worthy to be his partner, in every sense of the term. If that’s not high praise, tell me higher, and I’ll use it. A positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig’s calves. They shone in every part of the dance like moons. You couldn’t have predicted at any given time, what would become of ‘em next. And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance: advance and retire, hold hands with your partner; bow and curtsey; corkscrew, thread-the-needle, and back again to your place; Fezziwig “cut”—cut so deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legs, and came down upon his feet without a stagger.
When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side of the door, and shaking hands with every person individually as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas. When everybody had retired but the two ‘prentices, they did the same to them, and thus the cheerful voices died away, and the lads were left to their beds; which were under a counter in the back-shop.
During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene, and with his former self. He corroborated everything, remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent the strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned from them, that he remembered the Ghost, and became conscious that it was looking full on him, while the light upon its head burnt very clear.
“A small matter,” said the Ghost, “to make these silly folks so full of gratitude.”
“Small!” echoed Scrooge.
The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig: and, when he had done so, said
“Why? Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money: three or four, perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?”
“It isn’t that,” said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self. “It isn’t that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy, to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count ‘em up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.”
He felt the Spirit’s glance, and stopped.
“What is the matter?” asked the Ghost.
“Nothing particular,” said Scrooge.
“Something, I think?” the Ghost insisted.
“No,” said Scrooge. “No. I should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now! That’s all.”
His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance to the wish; and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood side by side in the open air.
“My time grows short,” observed the Spirit, “Quick!”
And what shall we say about the Fezziwig Christmas Party? It is the joy of the illustrator, the prize of the anthologist, the great and grand opportunity for the songwriter. The film-maker gets a glorious chance to slip in a production number, or display an array of painstakingly accurate props and costumes, or set up an elaborate and joyful set piece, with a cast of, anyhow, dozens.
And, at that, some versions cut it, while others give it a mere glance in passing. Quite a lot rewrite it to remove the very reason Dickens set it here, to show us that Ebenezer was not always the mind-on-business loner he became. In these, young Ebenezer is already dour, his mind often on the waste of time and expense of such an event (though Dickens has the Ghost point out that it was NOT expensive.) Belle is usually inserted into these, as a brief brightness in Ebenezer’s dim worldview, so that her removal from his life later becomes Scrooge’s excuse to become so fatally cranky.
What is odder, though, is the omission, in many versions, of the punchline, when Scrooge realizes how short of Fezziwig he falls as a manager. Just about everyone, though, whatever has been planned to follow it, uses “My time grows short.”
It’s just a thought in passing, by the way, but scriptwriters have elaborated the role of just about everyone else in this story, so why has nobody really definitively given us the story of “poor” Dick Wilkins? Beyond Owen, who shows Dick at school with Ebenezer, and Scott, who gives him a couple of lines after the party, no one does much more with Dick than Dickens, when Scrooge notes that Dick used to be quite fond of him. Sim II, indeed, drops Dick entirely, and has Scrooge use this line about Fezziwig.
Hicks, sticking to a rule of one vision per spirit, omits this scene.
Owen is led through the streets until he stands before “J. Fezziwig & Co.” The Ghost asks Scrooge if he remembers the place. “Fezziwig’s warehouse! I was apprenticed here!” Fezziwig is short and jolly, youngish, with a dark wig, and dressed in the style of the late eighteenth century. Dick and Ebenezer are extremely young. Looking eagerly to the clock, Fezziwig sprinkles sand to blot what he’s been writing, and shuts his book. Calling his apprentices, he orders them in a sharp voice to look at the clock themselves. “Do you know I’ve let you work five minutes after closing time?” Laughing, he orders them to put up the shutters. When they’ve finished, he tells them, “About tomorrow: it’s a holiday, of course, but I shall expect you to spend some part of it, at least, with me.” He pauses to watch their faces fall, and goes on, “Eating Christmas dinner! And as probably you’ll eat too much to be of any good next day, we’ll make that a holiday too.” He hands them their Christmas bonuses; each is rendered breathless by the discovery that this is a gold sovereign. “Solid gold is old Fezziwig,” they declare, once he has left. The Ghost asks Scrooge what the matter is, and persists until the old man admits that something is bothering him. “Old Fezziwig was very kind to me.” “Yes, he was. But he’s dead now.” She then lectures him on how he should repay old Fezziwig’s kindness by being kinder to his own clerk. Scrooge rejects this at once. “Business is business. I’m a good businessman.”
With Sim I, we arrive at an evocation of the dance, performing the dialogue about Scrooge remembering this place. Scrooge bounces in time to the music, elated to be here. His Fezziwig is rather young, and short, but very round, as is his wife. “Was there ever a kinder man?” Scrooge exclaims. The Ghost points out that the man has spent only three or four pounds of mortal money, and Scrooge snaps back as in the text. He stops abruptly at the word “fortune” and finally admits that he’d like to have a word or two with his clerk. Out of Scrooge’s sight, the Ghost nods approval.
With March, we enter Fezziwig’s home; some sort of country dance is in progress. This is a mannered exercise, but everyone is clearly having a good time. Wigged servants carry trays through the assembly; Fezziwig has clearly done well for himself. A governess conducts a small girl to dance with a heavyset older man, perhaps her grandfather. “There’s old Fezziwig, bless his heart, alive again! And Mrs. Fezziwig!” “Not alive again,” the literal-minded Ghost reminds him, “This is Christmas Past.” Scrooge spots Dick Wilkins, his fellow apprentice. “You haven’t forgotten,” notes the Ghost. Scrooge has not; he rhapsodizes “No more work tonight!’, he’d say, ‘It’s Christmas Eve!’ What a jolly old fellow he was. Look! There I am! Just as I used to be!” Young Ebenezer is filling the punch glass of a young lady who tells him not to be so stingy. Another asks why he isn’t dancing. He’s waiting for belle, who had to work late. When she arrives, we see she is indeed the very image (being played by the same actress) of the Ghost of Christmas past. At a call for a song, belle and Ebenezer oblige with “What Shall I Give My Lad/My Girl for Christmas?” Old Fezziwig holds mistletoe over their heads, and then calls for a polka. “He made us happy, did old Fezziwig. I wish….” At this critical moment, the Ghost interrupts to take us to the next scene.
The Spirit leads Rathbone to a tall metal door with a row of bricks on each side but no walls. A brass plate shows this to be the “Fezziwig & Co. Emporium.” “Do you know this door?” the Ghost inquires. “Know it?” Scrooge chuckles, “I was apprenticed here.” The Ghost gestures and the door swings open. We move to an office which has windows but no walls, and three counting desks. The two nearest us are occupied by Ebenezer and Dick Wilkins; the proprietor sits at the desk along the far open-space-not-wall. This man, a chap in late middle age, announces in a gravelly voice that it is time to clear away these desks to make room for the dancing. While the young men are about this, Belle enters, bearing a cake. When Fezziwig takes this, Belle seizes Ebenezer’s hands, dancing him round and round just as Fan did in the classroom, singing “La la la la”. Fezziwig commands that Ebenezer hang the mistletoe, and calls him a rogue when Ebenezer instead holds it over Belle’s head and kisses her. The Ghost notes that this is a small matter. “What?” demands Scrooge. “He has spent but a few pounds, but the happiness he gives is as great as if he had spent a fortune.” Scrooge admits this. The ghost goes on, “My time grows short. Quickly.”
Magoo and the Ghost stand outside a shop. The Ghost asks if he remembers it. Scrooge replies with joy that he was apprenticed here. Next he cries out at swing old Fezziwig, alive again. This Fezziwig is a jolly, roly-poly old soul in a white wig. He calls to the two apprentices, who rush into the room; Scrooge is touched to see Dick Wilkins again. Fezziwig gives his orders; we watch the apprentices put up the shutters and cheerfully clear away the stock to make room for dancing. Much food and greenery, including a Christmas tree, is put into place. The fiddler strikes up a tune; we find a Mrs. Fezziwig who is indeed a good match for her husband. Scrooge watches them, recalling, “Oh, he does love to dance! Oh, look at him dance!” In another part of the room, Belle is turning away suitors, hiding coyly behind her fan. “She won’t dance with ‘em,” Scrooge confides to the Ghost, slapping the Spirit on the back when Belle picks the young Ebenezer. Then to scrooge’s disappointment, the happy group fades away. Only Dick and Ebenezer are left, obviously after the party, locking up and praising old Fezziwig. The Ghost makes a disparaging remark about small matters; Scrooge replies with the “It isn’t that” speech, but draws no moral therefrom. The Ghost notes “My time grows short.”
Haddrick is asked by the Ghost if he remembers this place. He does. Young Ebenezer sits at a high desk. “Ah, such loneliness!” exclaims the Ghost. “That’s what made me what I am today,” Scrooge objects. “Lonely?” “No! Successful. Comfortably off. Because I chose to spend my time in more useful pursuits than pleasure and enjoyment.” Then he spots old Fezziwig, alive again. This Fezziwig is stout, with dark receding hair. Scrooge cries “Bless my soul!” orn seeing him, and again when he sees Dick Wilkins. The fiddler arrives; the two apprentices dash out to put up the shutters. The food is set out; for once this is pretty much limited to what is described in the text. Mrs. Fezziwig is plump, and taller than her husband. “They seem happy enough on Christmas Eve,” the Ghost observes. Scrooge steals the Ghost’s dialogue, grumbling “It takes little to make these people happy.” “You were one of them.” “I was young, but I’ve grown wiser.” “Have you, though?” “I have no time for making people merry. That’s humbug.” “My time grows short.”
Sim II’s Fezziwig is exuberantly rotund, with a dark wig, mustache, and monocle. Scrooge admits to knowing the place, and cries out on seeing his old boss alive again; he laughs. Fezziwig orders the lads to clear away, clapping Ebenezer on the shoulder. “He was very much attached to me.” There is a fiddler, lots of food, and a very plump Mrs. Fezziwig; we are given just a brief vision of the dancers. The Ghost makes her remark about small matters and silly folks; Scrooge responds as in the text. But instead of proceeding to the punchline, he experiences a brief vision of his treatment of Bob Cratchit at closing time. The Ghost notes “My time grows short.”
Finney’s is one of the oldest, thinnest, most serious-looking Fezziwigs, a Fezziwig that looks like George Arliss by way od Woodrow Wilson. Scrooge exclaims to see him alive again, and explains, “I was his apprentice!” Fezziwig, in a state of excitement, cries out to his apprentices, who hurry to put up the shutters and clear the room; only now does Scrooge recognize Dick Wilkins. Outside, the fiddlers leads the guests, dancing, up the street to the tune of “I Saw Three Ships”. Mrs. Fezziwig is rather petite; she and her husband rush into each other’s arms. The Ghost and Scrooge take up a position in the loft. Fezziwig, by now having proven his businesslike mien was but the mask of a Christas fanatic, leads the throng in the musical number “December the Twenty-Fifth”. The Ghost inquires “Why didn’t you join the dance?” Scrooge snaps “Because I couldn’t do it!” “Tsk tsk tsk tsk.” There is a lively dancing game, which Fezziwig loses, to his own great amazement. “What a marvelous man!” Scrooge declares. “What’s so marvelous? He’s merely spent but a few pounds of your mortal money.” This irritates Scrooge, who exclaims, “You don’t understand! He had the power to make us happy or unhappy, to make our work a pleasure or a burden. It’s nothing to DO with money!” The dancers prance on, but after a moment are moving in slow motion. We watch Fezziwig’s daughter Isabel draw Ebenezer into the dance. Old Scrooge recalls his love, singing “You…you….” We watch the pair on a summer picnic, chaperoned by Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig,.
Matthau sees himself with Belle, his fiancée. There is no mention whatever of Fezziwig, though we do see the old man and his wife dancing in a room dotted with Christmas trees. Scrooge recalls that the dance was so lively that the couple had to step out into the winter weather to cool themselves. Ebenezer explains to Belle why they can’t marry right away; old Scrooge shouts at him. The lovers sing about their different dreams, Belle being willing to settle for love in a cottage while Ebenezer wants to surround her with comforts in a rich man’s mansion.
McDuck stands outside the Fezzywig (sic) Tea Company. “I couldn’t have worked for a kinder man.” Mr. Toad plays Fezzywig AND the fiddler. Scrooge notes, “That shy lad in the corner: that’s me.” “That’s before you became a miserable miser, consumed by greed.” “Well, nobody’s perfect.” Lovely Isabella has to drag him into the dance; under the mistletoe, she kisses him. Scrooge recalls how much in love he was.
Scott’s Fezziwig is a cheerful old chap with dark hair; he also has an establishment which supports a large staff, including a couple of female clerks, all busy about some kind of work with dry goods. Fezziwig calls out, “Pens down! No more work tonight, boys!” and goes on to order the shutters up and things cleared away. He also makes a point of ordering young Ebenezer to enjoy himself; he appreciates how much Ebenezer puts into the work, but there is more to life. Ebenezer promises to try, while the old Scrooge exclaims at seeing Mrs. Fezziwig. And her three daughters! And…Belle. “I’d forgotten how beautiful she was.” Ebenezer invites her to dance; Belle is breathlessly excited at being in love. At length, they slip away from the group. The Ghost suddenly inquires, “How long since you danced, Ebenezer?” The smiling Scrooge turns dour. “Waste of time, dancing.” “You didn’t think so then.” “There was a reason then.” Meanwhile, Belle is telling Ebenezer how much less gloomy he seems since coming to Fezziwig’s. He replies that he is of a serious turn of mind, but will try henceforth to go through life with a grin. Old Scrooge smiles at the recollection. Fezziwig slips up behind the couple, making little jokes to embarrass the young lovers, and draws them back into the group, declaring all the while the joys of a happy marriage. The Ghost observes “Old Fezziwig: a silly man.” Scrooge is startled. “Silly? Why silly?” “What has he done? Spent a few pounds? Danced like a monkey? Beamed a great smile?” Scrooge leaps to Fezziwig’s defense, but his voice slows as he realizes how he compares to his old boss. “Just…small things,” he concludes. Dick, in the previous era, demands, “Are you in love, Ebenezer?” “The thought had occurred to me.” “She’s too good for you.” “One day, “Ebenezer muses, “When I’ve made my fortune, then I’ll deserve her.” “It was a night,” the Ghost notes, “Never to be forgotten.” “Never,” says Scrooge.
Caine flies through a flash of light. “Do you know this place?” “Know it? My first job was here!” This is Fozziewig’s Rubber Chicken factory; at the sight of his old boss, Scrooge laughs and describes the businessman as being “as hard and as ruthless as a rose petal.” He realizes with excitement that they have arrived in time for the Fozziewig Christmas Party. Fozziewig makes a welcoming speech, jeered by the young Marley brothers. A severe young Ebenezer asks if Fozziewig understands how much this party is costing. Fozziewig reproves him, ordering him to enjoy himself. Later, Fozziewig introduces Ebenezer to a distant relative, one Belle. Ebenezer is transfixed, and we hear the rest of the dialogue in echoes as love clouds his senses. “Do you remember this meeting?” the Ghost inquires. “Remember? Yes, I remember.”
With Curry, we see the warehouse and its four or five employees. “Bust my buttons!” Scrooge exclaims, on spotting Fezziwig, “He hasn’t changed a bit!” His boss is an elderly gent in late Victorian garb, a bit short of breath. Checking a pocket watch, he calls for his apprentices to put up the shutters and clear away. “I was an apprentice here,” Scrooge explains, “A good one, too. Old Fezziwig treated me like his own son.” He reaches to pet Debit, who shies away. There is a fiddler, a modest spread of food, and some dancing. Mrs. Fezziwig is younger than her husband. Scrooge, his expression mild, taps his feet to the music and laughs, “Good old Fezziwig! Show me a better boss than that, eh?” The Ghost is unimpressed. “So he spent a bit of coin on some song and dance.” “Bit of coin? You couldn’t buy that happiness with a fortune! He had the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our jobs a pleasure or a drudgery.” “He must have set quite an example for you.” Scrooge does not reply; the Ghost demands, “Now what?” “Oh, nothing particular. I’d like to be able to say something to Bob Cratchit, that’s all.” “My time grows short.”
Stewart is asked whether he knows this place; he is so obviously excited to be here that the Ghost chuckles. He pauses at the door, yanks it open, and cries out at seeing old Fezziwig alive again. This old Fezziwig is a stout fellow indeed, with a pronounced double chin and a high dark wig. Scrooge spots Dick Wilkins just before Fezziwig rushes over to sprinkle sand on their books, ordering them over and over to do no more work tonight. The older Scrooge takes it all in hungrily, nodding. The food arrives followed by a suitably plump Mrs. Fezziwig. There is a great deal of laughter. Scrooge names the Fezziwig children as they arrive; there is a bit of business with young Eli Fezziwig, whom Ebenezer delights by drawing a coin from behind the small boy’s ear. A band (flutes, clarinet, and serpent) plays for the dancing. Scrooge is now watching his younger self with apparent passivity until the camera pans down to show his feet bouncing to the music. He is breathless as Ebenezer and Dick Wilkins compete in a dancing contest; Ebenezer is then called upon to talk (the not unwilling) Fezziwig into performing a comic song. The Ghost’s hope rises with old Scrooge’s excitement. Belle arrives late. Ebenezer takes her cloak, kissing her. Scrooge takes this all in, murmuring that Fezziwig once told him “When happiness shows up, always give it a comfortable seat.” The Ghost responds with a variant of the speech about silly folk, and how little was spent. Scrooge answers fiercely, nbut slows as he realizes what he is exposing about his own managerial style. In reply to questioning, he mumbles, “Looking back, perhaps things seem better than they really were.” “All this was a lie, then?” “The world changes. You can’t trust anything,” growls Ebenezer Scrooge. But that is as far as he can go in that direction; he cannot resist going on, “But no. It was just like this, down to the last mince pie and dance.” Regret is obvious in his face; we se snow falling on the waltzing Belle and Ebenezer, which leads us into the next scene.
19 ½: Interlude
At this point, Sim I veers away from the text into three episodes, all bridging the gap between Fezziwig’s apprentice and the hard young man who rejects or is rejected by Belle in the next scene. We begin with the eager young apprentice sitting with Alice (the name Belle goes by in this production.) He hands her an engagement ring which cost him a shilling. She hands it back.
Dismayed, Ebenezer asks if the ring is not good enough, or he not rich enough.
“You’re still so young,” she tells him. “You may have a change of heart one day.”
“Dearest Alice, if ever I have a change of heart towards you, it will be because my heart has ceased to beat.” Scrooge always did have a way with words.
She asks if it makes no difference to him that she is so poor. He says he loves her BECAUSE she’s poor, and not proud. “Will you always feel like that?” she inquires.
“As long as I live. Forever and ever.”
She accepts him then, and they vow to love each other to eternity.
“I’ve seen enough,” snarls old Scrooge.
“But more awaits you,” the Ghost informs him.
“I won’t look.”
“You shall. Now see yourself in business.”
The devil enters Fezziwig’s in the form of the elegant Mr. Jorkens. He wants to buy out old Fezziwig, at considerable profit to both himself and the old man. Fezziwig declines to sell; he may be old-fashioned, but money isn’t everything. When he leaves the room to check on something, young Scrooge tries to stick up for Fezziwig’s point of view. Jorkens offers him twice his current salary to come work for the firm Jorkens represents.
We shift to Fan’s deathbed; Ebenezer is devastated, leaving before Fan’s last words, pausing for a moment to glower in the direction of a crying baby. A man (his brother-in-law?) tries to prevent him from leaving; Scrooge jerks away and marches out. After he is gone, Fan murmurs a plea that Ebenezer look after her boy. (Nice commentary on her husband.) The old scrooge, sobbing, begs her forgiveness.
Fan’s death seems to have resulted from a lack of ready cash; Ebenezer is immediately moved to go accept Jorkens’s offer. (He mentions that Fezziwig wished him well as he left.) Here he meets the older and somewhat world-weary senior clerk, Jacob Marley, who voices some of Jorkens’s philosophy, noting the industrial revolution has made the world a tougher place. Mr. Scrooge replies that the world is hard and cruel; one must steel oneself or be crushed with the weak and infirm. Mr. Marley notes they have much in common.
At length, we see the sign for “J. Fezziwig & Co., est. 1765” being removed from its building. The new managers, Scrooge and Marley, walk by as Fezziwig watches from inside a carriage; he is obviously the victim of a hostile takeover. A clerk asks if he will be kept on in the new firm, and is informed that his job is secure if he takes a twenty percent cut in salary. Scrooge, recognizing Fezziwig, almost takes a step forward. When he pauses, the carriage pulls away.
We shift to Alice,. Looking out a window; then we step inside, where Ebenezer is saying “Then you no longer love me.”
“You no longer love me,” says Alice, before we move into the next section.
(Finney has a briefer interlude to cover this period, as we watch the Fezziwigs, Belle, and Ebenezer on their picnic. The Ghost looks touched ass Ebenezer gives Alice a ring. “I did love her, you know,” Scrooge tells the Ghost. “Did you? Why did you let her go?” “I’ve never been quite sure.” “Then let us go see.”
FUSS FUSS FUSS #10: In the Matter of Fezziwig, Ltd.
So here is Mr. Fezziwig, his face and figure set down forever by John Leech: boss of all bosses, a man who really knows how to handle staff relations and throw a mean Christmas party. That is really all Dickens tells us about him, so whoever wants more will need to make it up as they go along.
So Owen gives us J. Fezziwig, Sim I has S. Fezziwig, McDuck Fezzywig, Stewart one Albert Fezziwig, and Caine has Fozziewig (who is Fozzie in a wig; comedy can be very logical.) All but a few Fezziwigs clearly bear a relation to the Leech illustration, without the least nonsense about a welch, or Welsh, wig (which, as The Annotated Christas Carol informs us, is a cloth cap.)
What the firm (est. 1765, according to sim I) actually does is even more of a mystery than what Scrooge & Marley did. There is a warehouse, but this tells us nothing. Scott’s Fezziwig deals in dry goods, while McDuck’s runs a tea company. Fozziewig manufactures rubber chickens. In Sim I, he is a “merchant”, manufacturing waistcoats; in Rathbone he owns an “Emporium”, perhaps a retail store (perhaps not.) In some versions, Ebenezer and Dick Wilkins appear to be his sole employees, while in others, he has a large staff (Dickens leans a little toward the latter.) Curry and Finney have memories of hauling boxes for the firm.
His family is largely ignored by screenwriters, save in Stewart, where his daughters have names (and a brother.) When Belle makes an early appearance, she may be a daughter, a niece, another relation, or just another one of the poor working girls attending the party.
In most movies, Fezziwig throws a much larger affair than Dickens shows us. (Three or four pounds wouldn’t cover a fraction of the spread in March.) But whatever the size of his party or his company; the essential Fezziwig is represented, a manager who justifies the joy in Scrooge’s cry of “It’s old Fezziwig, alive again!”
Blogsy Babbles 