Blogsy Babbles

     Scrooge promised that he would’; and they went on, invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the town.  It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which Scrooge had observed at the baker’s) that notwithstanding his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as gracefully and like a supernatural creature, as it was possible he could have done in any lofty hall.

     And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor men, that led him straight to Scrooge’s clerk’s; for there he went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped to bless Bob Cratchit’s dwelling with the sprinkling of his torch.  Think of that!  Bob had but fifteen ‘Bob’  a-week himself: he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian name; and yet the Ghost of Christas Present blessed his four-roomed house!

     Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit’s wife, dressed out but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make goodly show for six-pence; and she left the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and getting the corners of his monstrous shirt-collar (Bob’s private property, conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the day) into his mouth, rejoice to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to show his lenen in the fashionable parks.  And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker’s they had smelt the goose, and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter to the skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled.

     “What ever has got your previous father then,” said Mrs. Cratchit, “And your brother, Tiny Tim, and Martha warn’t this late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour!”

     “Here’s Martha, mother!” said a girl, appearing as she spoke.

     “Here’s Martha, mother!” cried the two young Cratchits.  “Hurrah!  There’s SUCH a goose, Martha!”

     “Why, bless my heart alive, my dear, how late you are!” said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her, with officious zeal.

     “We’d a deal of work to finish up last night,” replied the girl, “and had to clear away this morning, Mother!”

      “Well!  Never mind as long as you’ve come,” said Mrs. Cratchit.  “Sit down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!”

     “No no!  There’s father coming,” cried the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once.  “Hide, Martha, hide!”

     So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least three feet of his comforter exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him; and his thread-bare clothes darned up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder.  Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame!

     “Why, where’s our Martha?” cried Bob Cratchit, looking around.

     “:Not coming,” said Mrs. Cratchit.

     “Not coming!” said Bob, with a sudden declension of his high spirits; for he had been Tim’s blond horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant.  “Not coming upon Christmas Day!”

     Martha didn’t like to see him disappointed, of it were only in a joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off to the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.

     We come to what it, for many people, the point of the whole show: the home of the Cratchits.  Bob Cratchit is finally given a name and, with it, a house and a family.  These are fairly warm and cosy, in the pictures: virtually every version gives us Mrs. Cratchit in the kitchen, and Tiny Tim riding Bob’s shoulder.  Martha’s little trick is frequently included, and the food is often on full view.  Sometimes the goose cooks here and sometimes at the baker’s: either way, the kitchen is the center of activity.

     Hicks begins with Bob and Tim travelling along the streets, Tim on Bob’s shoulder.  The scene is festive, with people playing in the snow, and more snow falling.  Bob buys Tim a small toy boat from a street vendor, and we jump ahead into the kitchen to wait for them to join us.  The two small Cratchits rush in, exclaiming that they’ve smelled the goose and knew it was theirs because the smell was so delicious.  They begin to dance  around celebrating “A happy goose! A happy goose!”  Mrs. Cratchit wonders whatever has happened to their precious father and Tiny Tim, but is distracted by the entrance of Martha, a solid older teen with an amiable face.  Martha explains how much work there was to clear away.  She is urged to have a warm, but her younger siblings bustle her over to hide behind her own coat, which the front door conceals when it opens.  Bob is suitable stunned to learn she isn’t coming, and thoroughly gratified when she takes pity on him and comes out from behind the door to throw her arms around him.

     Owen and the Spirit watch Bob carry Tim home.  Jumping ahead in the text, Scrooge asks if Tiny Tim will live.  Oblivious to this, Bob and Tim get home, Tim crying “Whoa!” and Bob replying “Whoa it is”  The two small Cratchits having smelled the goose, have hidden martha in the closet.  She peeks out, takes pity on her father, and appears, to his great relief.

     Sim I watches Bob come home with Tim on one shoulder.  We jump to the kitchen, where it is Mrs. Cratchit who urges Martha to hide behind the scullery door.  The scene proceeds much as described, even unto Peter’s positively monstrous collar.

     March omits the scene.

     Rathbone and the Spirit come to a window shrouded in fog.  “Your clerk Bob Cratchit’s house,” the Spirit informs him.  Scrooge peeks in to watch Bob and peter and Tim come home.  There is none of the byplay with Martha.

     Magoo assures the Spirit he’s never seen this place, and at length demands to know why they’re here.  “These people mean nothing to me.”  When he learns who they are, he is amazed at how happy the family can be on so little money.  The Spirit replies that their happiness is based on something unfamiliar to Scrooge.  “Love.”  Mrs. Cratchit is just demanding “What is keeping you father and your brother, Tiny Tim?” when those two enter.

     Haddrick is more knowledgeable, telling the Ghost, “This is where my clerk lives: fellow named Bob Cratchit.”  The remark is made about four room and fifteen shillings.  “That is why I’m here,” the Spirit explains.  Scrooge seems surprised: “To bless this lowly place?”  “Of course! Because what seems lowly to you and what seems lowly to me are obviously different things.”  The children dash in, declaring they smelled the goose at the baker’s.  Peter snitches a little food.  Bob and Tim are shown on their way home, discussing the church service.  Scrooge takes snuff, as he has been doing earlier, and again fails to sneeze.  He asks the ghost why he can’t get a good sneeze to clear his head, and is told he’s too mean to give away even a good sneeze.  His values are confused: take that sovereign he constantly rubs.  “This is the first sovereign I ever made.”  But soon, the Ghost says, he will have worn it away, and will have lost it.  Better to use it for some good purpose.  Meanwhile, Martha a slightly younger version of her mother, hides behind a door until she can come out again to surprise her father.  Peter, by the way, wears a cap in this version, and a modern-looking necktie.)

     In Sim II, we watch Bob and Tim gallop home.  The children cry “Hoorah!  Father’s home!  Father’s home!”  Much of the rest is omitted.

      The Ghost and Finney crash into a snowdrift; Finney is sober again, and indignant, demanding to know where they are.  The Ghost informs him that they are outside the lavish home of one Robert Cratchit, Esquire, who owes the opulence  of his home and the magnificence of his Christmas dinner to the high principles and generosity of his employer.  “I’ll look in the window,” state Scrooge.  “It will cost you nothing, which I’m sure will be good news to you.”  “Will they be able to see me?”  “No, which I feel sure will be good news to them.”  Scrooge says he could use another drink of the Milk of Human kindness; the Ghost tells him it will be better for him to see things as they are, rather confusing the metaphor.  Scrooge looks in at a very low, dark, kitchen; Bob is already there.

      Matthau looks in at a fat Mrs. Cratchit who is very busy about the kitchen; when she hears a sound from the front room, she says to herself, “The children and Bob home from church.”  The twins rush in, crying that the goose may be small, but they could smell it all the way up the street.  “Where are your father and Tiny Tim?”  “Who wants to know?” calls Bob.  Tim asks about the pudding; his mother tells him it is “bubbling and singing away in its copper pot as if it was a Christmas caroler.”

     McDuck demands “Why did you bring me to this old shack?”  The Ghost explains, and he peers through the window.  “What’s that cooking?  A canary?  Surely they have more food than that.  Look on the fire!”  The ghost studies a bubbling pot.  “That’s your laundry.”

     We pass with Scott through the torch and find ourselves in Camdentown.  “Do you know this house?” inquires the Ghost.  “No, I can’t say I do.”  “It is the house of Bob Cratchit.”  “Is it?  He does very well on fifteen bob a week.”  Scrooge demurs when told to go in, saying he’d hate to intrude, and is told that they shall be unable to see or hear him, as in the last ghost’s visions.  Inside, Peter is snitching food.  The two small Cratchits rush in, exclaiming at how beautiful the goos smells.  Mrs. Cratchit tells them to go with Martha and butter the bread…thinly.  Bob and Tim enter; Tim is carried off to listen to the pudding.

     Caine comes here after his visit to Fred.  “Why have we come to this odd corner of the town?”  “It’s Christmas here, too, you know!”  Dickens gives us an abbreviated version of the “Perhaps it was the Spirit’s own generous nature” speech, and we peek in at one of the few blonde Mrs. Cratchits, standing with her back to us.  (She also has a first name, Emily.)  Rizzo manages to fall down the chimney onto the goose roasting on a spit; the goose is smaller than he is.  Mrs. Cratchit snitches a few chestnuts; when confronted by her twin daughters, she replies that she was merely tasting them.  Scrooge and the Spirit then turn to watch the entrance of Bob and Tim, singing.

     Curry has to be dragged into the house by the Spirit.  Jolly children are enjoying themselves in a large, airy kitchen.  The lady of the house asks Martha wherever are her father and Tiny Tim.  Scrooge demands “Who ARE these people?”  The Ghost won’t tell him.  Bob and Tim enter; Scrooge is struck by this revelation.  “The Cratchits? I had no idea Bob lived so humbly.”  “What did you think, with the wage you pay him?”

     Stewart demands, “Where are we going now, Spirit?”  He is startled to learn they are going to Bob Cratchit’s home, and is given a lecture about that fifteen bob a week.  Mrs. Cratchit and the four middle children are working and singing merrily in the kitchen.  Martha enters, explaining how she had to work late.  “She sounds a very hard-working young girl,” notes Scrooge.  “She has to be,” replies the Spirit, the reproof in his tone surprising Scrooge.  The children hide Martha in the scullery.  Bob and Tim gallop home; Tim cries “Whoa!”  “I didn’t know Cratchit had a crippled son,” Scrooge remarks; the Ghost snaps “Why didn’t you ask?”  Martha is gradually released from the scullery, to her father’s relief.

FUSS FUSS FUSS #14: Assorted Cratchits

     The people who delve into these things see the Cratchits as a fictionalized version of young Charles Dickens’s home, with Peter Cratchit as a self-portrait.  (Tiny Tim is felt to be a merging of his nephew Henry with the older of Dickens’s two brothers named Fred.)  He is not specific about their age or aspect, save when he describes their clothes.  He doesn’t even give names to the fourth and fifth children: in the Lionel Barrymore radio version, even the Ghost of Christmas present refers to them as “two little Cratchits”.

     In general, the earlier the movie, the older the Cratchits; even Tim gets tinier as we go on.  Animated versions are likely to cut back on the number of Cratchits: makes for less complex drawings.

     Hicks’s Mrs. Cratchit is a woman in late middle age, with six children.  (“A round half dozen” Bob calls them, earlier, mentioning three boys and three girls.)  Martha, Belinda, and Peter are all teenagers, though some critics put Martha in her 20s.  Tim, who looks nine or ten, wears a leg brace.

     Owen’s Mrs. Cratchit is a lively older o=woman; her children are all ten or over.  Tim, who wears a brace on one leg, is fully two-thirds as tall as his parents.

     Sim  I gives us an older Mrs. Cratchit with five children well along in years: Peter, Martha, Mary, Belinda, and Tim.  Tim is going to be taller than his parents in a year or two.

     March begins a trend to younger Cratchits.  The two little Cratchits, both girls in this version, are barely older than Tim.  In fact, since this is possibly the tallest Tiny Tim ever, they may even be younger than he is.  There are five children: Peter, Belinda, Susan (Suzy), Martha, and Tim.

     Rathbone shows us a cheerful youngish Mrs. Cratchit who has only three children: Martha, Peter, and Tim.

     Magoo gives us a plump Mrs. Cratchit, who wears a bonnet.  She has four children: Martha, who is considerably taller and older than the others, a rather short brother Peter in high collars, an intermediate child who may be a girl, and Tim.

     Haddrick has a plump older Mrs. Cratchit with four children evenly spaced in age: Martha, Peter, Belinda, and Tim.

     Sim II has one of the oldest and plumpest Mrs. Cratchits, positively on a par with Mrs. Fezziwig, with five children of whom we don’t see much: Peter is the oldest and Tim, who seems to be six or seven, is the youngest.

     Matthau presents us with a plump Mrs. Cratchit who has four children: Martha, Peter, Belinda, and Tim.  This is probably the youngest collection of Cratchits: atypically, all but Tim are blond.

     Finney begins a trend toward Mrs. Cratchits of streamline design: she is younger, too, so her children are correspondingly younger as well.  Tim is stated to be just seven years old.  The room being rather dark, it is difficult to count the children, but there seem to be three girls and two boys: Martha, Peter, Belinda, Cathy, and Tim.

     McDuck brings us Minnie Mouse with three little mice, a boy, a girl, and a Tim.

     Scott gives us a slender Mrs. Cratchit.  Tim is six or seven, his immediately older siblings not so much older.  There are five rather well-dressed children; the girls wear bonnets.  Peter, Martha, and Tim are three of the children; the others are listed in the credits as “Little Boy Cratchit” and “Little Girl Cratchit”.  (The dialogue will refer to this latter sometimes as Belinda and sometimes as Alice.)

     Caine gives us Miss Piggy, of course, and four children: Peter and Tim are frogs like their father while the twins Belinda and Bettina are pigs.

      Curry’s Mrs. Cratchit is slim, robust, and reasonably well-dressed.  There are four children: Martha, the oldest, is a slim teen.  Then come Peter, a girl with no name, and Tim, who must be seven or thereabouts.

     Stewart has a similarly slim, healthy Mrs. Cratchit, who has six children.  There are three teenagers—Peter, Martha, and Belinda—and three younger children, the two little Cratchits, not much older than Tim, and Tim himself.  Tim’s tininess is not infinite; this is the only Bob Cratchit shown trying to ease a sore neck and shoulders after setting Tim down.

      “Spirit,” said Scrooge, after a moment’s thought, “I wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these people’s opportunities of innocent merriment.”

     “I!” cried the Spirit!

     “You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said to dine at all,” said Scrooge.  “Wouldn’t you?”

     “I!” cried the Spirit.

     “You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day!” said Scrooge, “And it comes to the same thing.”

     “I seek!” exclaimed the Spirit.

     “Forgive me if I am wrong.  It has been done in your name, or at least that of your family,” said Scrooge.

     “There are some upon this earth of yours,” returned the Spirit, “who claim to know us, and to do their deeds od passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived.  Remember that, and charge their doings to themselves, not us.”

     Gosh, it’s nice to know that after 180 years, Dickens is still a dangerous radical.  Fred Guida, who saw every version of A Christmas Carol worth seeing (and plenty that were not) found only one, in Spanish, which includes this scene.  Why do you suppose that is?

     IT REQUIRES A FOOTNOTE: Bakers, forbidden to sell bakery on Sunday, nonetheless had to keep their ovens running, for starting up a cold oven on Monday would not have provided good baking.  Poor people, having no oven at home, would pack up a Sunday dinner and take it there to rent a little space in the oven, as we saw people doing last time around and and we shall wee the Cratchits doing later.  Some people felt this honored the letter of the law but violated the spirit, and wanted this practice shut down.

     THE GHOST OF CHRISTMA PRESENTS, SPEAKING FOR ALL CRHISTANITY, COMES OUT IN FAVOR OF INNOCENT MERRIMENT RATHER THAN STRICT ADHERENCE TO THE COMMANDMENTS.

      THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PRESENT, SPEAKING FOR ALL CHRISTIANITY, MAKES THE POINT THAT CHRISTIANITY SHOULD NOT BE BLAMED FOR ALL THE IDIOTIC THINGS PEOPLE DO IN ITS NAME.

     SCROOGE IS SHOWN SOFTENING.  This is probably the main reason: the Scrooge we heard back in the office chatting with the Charity Solicitors would not have worried about eh Sunday dinners of the poor.  And some filmmakers are just not ready for Scrooge to be reasonable yet.

FUSS FUSS FUSS #13  The Reading version

    A Christmas Carol was Dickens’s second most popular public performance, surpassed in the number of times he gave it only by his performances of the trial scene from the Pickwick Papers.  What this meant was that he went on tinkering with it long after the official text was published.  Like a lot of authors, he felt he could have done better, given a second chance.  For the twenty-fifth anniversary edition, he replaced the charming original preface with another one in which he apologizes for not having spent more time on it, fleshing the characters out better, giving more of their background (and generally destroying his chance of producing a Christmas Classic.) 

      What remains of his tinkering goes the other way, however.  He cut the Carol down into a two hour reading, and later cut it back farther to 85 minutes.  We know he added bits as well, but he doesn’t seem to have written these down and they are lost.  But his cuts, along with his performance notes, did survive, and can be seen in “A Christmas Carol: The Reading Version”, published in 1971 by the New York Public Library (which holds the prompt books) with notes and introduction by Charles Collins.

      What is interesting, not to say alarming, is the number of what we consider classic bits that he cut.  In the one hand, of course, they were not as classic when he did his readings.  On the other, it would seem to prove that the author is not always the best judge of his own text.

      Among the cuts were

     The doornail

     “Business!  Mankind was my business!”

     The wandering spirits outside Scrooge’s window

     “She died a woman, and had, as I think, children.”

     “Why to a poor one most?”

     The two Significant Children under Christmas Present’s robe (he felt this would be a turn-off to certain audiences)

     “It’s likely to be a very cheap funeral.”

     “You don’t mean to say you took ‘em down, rings and all, with him lying there!”

     “However and whenever we part from one another, I am sure we shall none of us forget Tiny Tim.”

     “Heaven, and the Christmas Time, be praised for this!  I say it on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!”

     “The Spirits have done it all in pone night.”

     The meeting with the Charity Solicitors on Christmas morning

     Holly, mistletoe, and berries, ivy, turkey, geese, game, poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages,, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly.  So did the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning, where (for the weather was severe), the people made a rough, but brisk and not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of their houses; whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come plumping down into the road below, and splitting into artificial little snowstorms.

     The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground; which last deposit had bee ploughed up n deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and wagons; furrows that crossed and re-crossed each other hundreds of times where the great streets branched off, and made intricate channels. Hard to trace, in the thick yellow mud and icy water.  The sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half-thawed, half frozen, where heavier particles descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away to their dear hearts’ content.  There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.

     For the people who were shovelling away on the housetops were jovial and full of glee; calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball==better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest–laughing heartily if it went right, and not less heartily if it went wrong.  The poulterers’ shops were still half open, and the fruiterers’ were radiant in their glory.  There were great round, pot=bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence.  There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by; and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe.  There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made in the shopkeepers’ benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people’s mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squat and swarthy setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner.  The very gold and silver fish, set forth among these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was something going on; and, to a fish, were gasping round and round their little world in slow and passionless excitement.

   The Grocers’!  Ah, the Grocers’! nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters down, or one; but through these gaps such glimpses!  It was not alone that the scales descending on the counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, pr even that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint and subsequently bilious.  Nor was it that the figs were  moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, or that everything was so good to eat and in its Christmas dress: but the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise pf the day that they tumbled up against each other at the door, clashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes in the best humour possible; while the Grocer and his people were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind them might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws to peck at if they chose.

     But soon the steeples called good people all, the church and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the bakers’ shops.  The signs of these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge beside him in a baker’s doorway. And, taking off their covers as the bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch.  And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice when there were agry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good humour was restored directly.  For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day.  And so it was!  God love it, so it was!

     In time the bells ceased, and the bakers’ were shut up; and yet there was a genial shadowing forth pf all these dinners and the progress of their coking, in the thawed blotch of wet above each baker’s oven; where the pavement smoked as if the stones were cooking, too.

     “Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch?” asked Scrooge.

     “There is.  My own.”

     “Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?” asked Scrooge.

     “To any kindly given.  To a poor one most.”

     “Why to a poor one most?” asked Scrooge.

     “Because it needs it most.”

     Dickens sets out a detailed picture of early Christmas day for us.  We can use this material to bring on another opulent display of props, set the scene, and give Scrooge another hint about Christmas, OR scoot right past it to the Cratchit Christmas dinner.  Voting is split pretty evenly among the various versions.

     Hicks goes straight to Bob’s house.

     Sim I flies with the Ghost, who shows Scrooge “a place where miners dwell”.  The family group is singing “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”.  After this they spot Bob Cratchit.

     March materializes inside the Cratchit house.  Magoo materializes just outside.  Haddrick flies over London to land there.  Finney skips all of this completely.  Rathbone and the Spirit dematerialize as before and rematerialize in the Cratchits’.

     Matthau and the Spirit fly over the city.  The Ghost cries, “Look!  The City of London at Christmas!”  THEN they fly on to Bob’s place.

     Using a streetlight as a flashlight and lifting roofs to peer into various houses, the Spirit takes McDuck straight to Bob Cratchit’s.

     Curry and the Spirit fly to daylight.  The Ghost, joyous, cries “Happy me!  Happy everyone!”  “Happy Humbug!” snorts Scrooge.  The ghost asks if he is backsliding already.  He replies, “Why should I be accused of being selfish when Christmas is such a selfish holiday?”    Outraged, the Spirit lets him fall.  Catching him in the nick of time, she asks if THAT was selfish.  He says it was; she saved him only so she could annoy hi further.  “Let’s see if I can convince you otherwise,” she says.

     Versions which make more of the passage, if only a little, include Sim II, who finds himself standing with the Spirit in a snowy, thickly-populated, rather dark town square.  The narrator explains that the Spirit dropped a few drops of good cheer from his torch.  We spot Bob Cratchit galloping through the snow with Tim on his shoulder.

     Bells ring; Scott walks with the Spirit in a daylit street.  “What day is it now?” Scrooge demands.  “Don’t you know?  Christmas morning.”  They pass a fish stall and a butcher shop.  “There’s a lot of buying, isn’t there?” says Scrooge, rubbing his hands together.  “Oh, Ebenezer, is that all you can see?  Follow me and I’ll show you to what good use these things can be put.”  “Is there some peculiar power that emanates from your torch?”  “Oh, yes.  There is.”  Nodding, the Spirit moves on and declines to explain further.

     Caine and the Spirit materialize in a dark square, but daylight and a crowd appear a moment after.  It is time for the jolliest number of the production, “It Feels Like Christmas”, a musical evocation of what Christmas truly means (at least in this version.)  The pair move through a cheerful bustle; Scrooge is detached and dubious.  Making himself tiny, the Spirit moves in to bless a family of mice; Scrooge, peering into the mousehole, suddenly smiles.  As holiday excitement expands through the crowd, Scrooge begins to look as if he regrets not being a part of it.  The Ghost rejoins him, leading him into the dance.  At the end, he is exhilarated. “Spirit, I had no idea!  I wish to see friends, kin!  Show me family!”  (We will be transported to Fred’s Christmas party now, before we go to the Cratchits’.)

     When Stewart reaches for the Spirit’s robe, we seem to see apples pouring from under it.  The camera pulls back to show us the fruiterer in the square is refilling a bin.  The Ghost casts a significant glance at Scrooge and sprinkles glitte4ing water from the torch as they move along.  Scrooge asks why.  “Is there a blessing in it?”  “There is.  My own.”  They converse  as described; when Scrooge asks “Why to a poor one most?” the Spirit answers in a tone that suggests Scrooge should have known this answer already.

      It is Owen’s version which makes the most of this section.  A pudd of smoke surrounds Scrooge and then we see people moving in and out of the baker’s.  Scrooge asks what’s going on; the Spirit explains that the poor find it cheaper to take their dinners to the baker to be cooked.  As we watch, two men bump into each other and start to snarl.  Light blinks from the horn the Spirit carries, and the two men wonder aloud why they’re fighting.  Scrooge asks what happened and is told that what is sprinkled from the horn is a spirit five times distilled: the Spirit of Christmas cheer, of love, of all that’s good, of all that makes this time of year different from any other time.  The explanation goes on, but Scrooge has noticed two other men arguing.  He points them out to the Spirit, who again flashes his torch and makes peace.  Turning to Scrooge, he says “We stopped that.”  Scrooge beams.  “Yes, we did, didn’t we?”  A bell chimes.  “That church,” says the Ghost, “We have business there.”  In the congregation, we find Fred and his fiancée sharing a hymnal.  The Spirit leans over to confide in Scrooge, “I don’t believe for a moment that they love one another.”  Scrooge disputes this.  The Ghost goes on to say it is fortunate that the two don’t have the wherewithal to marry; their love will soon fade.  Scrooge takes exception to that as well.  “Their love will grow.  They SHOULD be married.”  Farther down the pew, we find Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim singing “O Come, All Ye Faithful.”  Looking down at Tim, Bob’s voice chokes off.  A clasp of Tim’s hand hives him courage and volume again.  When church lets out, , Fred and fiancée chat with Bob and Tim.  As the Cratchits move on, Fred observes that the ice is perfect for sliding.  His fiancée says they really shouldn’t: not in front of a church.  She would seem to be borne out in this when the boys who ARE sliding are chased away by a clergyman.  But when the boys are gone, that worthy has a quick slide himself.  Convinced now, the young lady joins Fred in a glide along the ice.  Of course they fall gleefully into the snow, where Fred kisses her.  Our attention then shifts to Bob and Tim walking home.

      The moment Scrooge’s hand was on the lock, a strange voice called hi by his name, and bade him enter.  He obeyed.

     It was his own room.  There was no doubt about that./  But it had undergone a surprising transformation.  The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a perfect grove, from every part of which, bright gleaming berries glistened.  The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, aa if so many little mirrors had been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney, as that that dull petrification of a hearth had never known in Scrooge’s time, or Marley’s, or for many and many a winter season gone.  Heaped on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, gees, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam.  In easy state upon this ouch, there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to see; who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike plenty’s horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge, as he came peeping round the door.

     “Come in!” exclaimed the Ghost.  “Come in!  and know me better, man!”

     Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before the Spirit.  He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and though the Spirit’s eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to meet them.

     “I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,” said the Spirit.  “Look upon me!”

     Scrooge reverently did so.  It was clothed in one simple deep green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur.  This garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice.  Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles.  Its dark brown curls were long and free: free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air.  Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.

     “You have never seen the like of me before!” exclaimed the Ghost.

     “Never,” Scrooge made answer to it.

      “Have never walked forth with the younger members of my family; meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers born in these later years?” pursued the Phantom.

     “I don’t think I have,” said Scrooge.  “I am afraid I have not.  Have you many brothers, Spirit?”

     “More than eighteen hundred,” said the Ghost.

      “A tremendous family to provide for!” muttered Scrooge.

     The Ghost of Christmas present rose.

     “Spirit,” said Scrooge submissively, “Conduct me where you will.  I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learned a lesson which is working now.  To-night, if you have ought to teach me, let me profit by it.”

     “Touch my robe!”

     Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.

     Look at all the room Dickens gave moviemakers to play in!  Scrooge’s attitude to the Ghost, the Ghost’s opinion of him, and how much they have to say to each other all vary.  There are also a few technical matters to employ in making a giant appear in a live-action film.  Camera angles can do the trick, or a miniature room to make the actor playing the Ghost stoop a bit so as to clear the ceiling; Caine has a gigantic head which peers through the door at him.  Since Dickens makes it clear this Spirit can change size at will, most versions bring him down to a manageable height after the first impact.

     Other things are constant from Scrooge to Scrooge: that parlor which becomes a larder, the massive Ghost based generally on Leech’s illustration, and, especially, that line “Come in!  and know me better, man!”

      Following that line, Hicks finds himself facing a gross goblin who seems to have escaped from some historical movie about Nero or henry VIII.  (He’s one of a line of Christmases Present who actually eat the props.)  They exchange the dialogue much as written; Scrooge is softening.  “Touch my robe,” orders the Ghost. “And you shall see how your clerk, with his paltry fifteen shillings a week, which you so grudgingly dole out to him, keeps Christmas!  Touch my robe!”  Scrooge raises his hand high, hesitates for just a moment, and then lets it drop on the Spirit’s garment.

     “Come here and know me better, Scrooge!” calls Owen’s wide-eyed, robust, but not so very giant Spirit.  This Ghost has had “a huge number” of brothers, “Some eighteen hundred!”  Owen asks “What’re we going to do?”  “Walk into the world this Christmas night so that you can hear and see and feel Christmas in the world this night.”  “Did you say walk or fly?”  “Touch my robe.”

     The Ghost has to summon Sim I several times; Scrooge keeps calling “I’m coming.”  When he does finally go into the next room, and see what is waiting for him, he turns away, shaking his head.  The giant Ghost declares, “You have never seen the like of me before!” to which Scrooge makes the immortal reply, “No.  And I wish the pleasure had been indefinitely postponed.”  “So!  Is your heart still unmoved towards us, then?”  Scrooge begins the refrain that he will reprise several times.  “I am too old!  I am beyond hope!  Go and redeem some young, more promising creature and leave me to keep Christmas in my own way.”  He is given a lecture on how Christmas spirits live not just one day any more than the Christ Child sees to only one day.  “You have chosen not to seek Him in your heart; therefore you shall come with me and seek him in the hearts of men of good will.  Come.  Touch my robe!”  The Ghost chuckles as Scrooge shuffles forward.

     March finds a Ghost who looks a great deal like his nephew Fred, sitting in a room rather heavier on decorations than food.  He wears no beard, and is not a giant; his costume is about half jester and half lieutenant, bells replacing brass.  He is suitably hearty though, and sings the most rollicking song in the production, “A Very Merry Christmas”.  Scrooge walks around and around him, once reaching timidly in to ring some of the bells.  During this number, the Ghost shows off a few tricks, finding a sprig of mistletoe under Scrooge’s nightcap, drawing a long garland from inside Scrooge’s dressing gown, and so on.  Scrooge’s glee and wonder grow with each trick.  His stuffed raven flies out the window.  Under duress at first, but then with good will, Scrooge finds himself dancing with the Ghost.  Not that he’s perfectly convinced: his face goes through an alarming series of conflicting expressions; at one point he tries to hide in the bed again.  Finally, he asks what we’ve all been wondering, “Nephew?  Fred?”  “Nephew?” cries the Ghost.  “I am the Spirit of Christmas Present.  Pluck up your courage.  Only good will happen to you.”  The Ghost picks up, and raises his nose at, the bowl of gruel as Scrooge asks “Christmas Present?”  “Yes.  You don’t give many of them, do you?”  Scrooge is abashed: “Not of late years,” he admits.  “I do,” the Spirit replies, “It’s my business.  None of this will be wasted, you may be sure.”  “How did you come here?”  “I came on my regular round.”  “Spirit, if you have anything to teach me, I’m ready to learn.”  The Ghost sings more of his song while spreading a tablecloth on Scrooge’s table.  He sets the gruel in the center of this, gestures, and we are looking at a plum pudding on the table of the Cratchit household.

     As Rathbone peers out the window, a voice calls “Come here!  Come here and know me better, man!”  The cold fireplace Scrooge peeked into a second ago is now ablaze, and there is food all over the place.  In the corner sits a man with a Sants suit and the shortest beard of any Christmas present except for Hicks (well, and Curry.)  Scrooge, removing that absurd nightcap at last, admits he has never seen the like of this Ghost before.  “You could have known many of my older brothers, if you’d wanted.”  The Spirit tosses the mug he is holding to one side, and rises: he is not quite a giant, but he is taller than Scrooge (now that the cap is gone.)  Scrooge asks the Ghost to conduct him where he will; if the Spirit has ought to teach him, he is ready to elarn.  “Good,” says the Ghost, a bit grim.  “Toich my cloak.”

     Magoo gets a rather rotund white-bearded man who observes that Scrooge has never seen the like of him before.  “I’m not sure I see the like of you now,” says the squinting Scrooge.  “So I’ve heard; you’re the one who’s too tight with a penny to buy himself a pair of spectacles.”  The Ghost orders Scrooge to come in and know him better, man.  Scrooge replies by asking “Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?”  (He has to use that line here, remember, because in this version Christmas present is the first of the Spirits.)  “Touch my robe,” the Ghost replies.

     Haddrick finds a white-bearded Spirit very much like the last one; this Ghost does seem a wee bit younger, and carries a lantern instead of a crozier.  He is not a giant, and stands in a room now featuring a Christmas tree and presents.  “Come in!  and know me better, man!  I am the Ghost of Christmas Present!  Lok upon me well!”  “Spirit, take me where you will.  I have already been forth this night—or last night—and I am anxious to end this ordeal.”  “Touch my robe.”  They rise through the ceiling.

     Sim II’s Ghost is definitely based on the Leech illustration, even to the hairy chest.  “Come in!  and know me better, man!  You have never seen the like of me before!”  Scrooge merely shakes his head.  His only line here is to request the Ghost to “Take me where you will.  If you have ought to teach me, let me profit by it.”  The Ghost looks a wee bit irritated, but rises and commands him to touch the robe.  (You will observe that this Ghost actually wears a scabbard, as required by the text, but it looks like plain leather.)

     Finney unlocks the door to the next room, but, hearing his name, runs back to bed.  When the Ghost threatens to come fetch him, he scuttles to the door again.  The light there is too bright for him; when the Ghost lowers it, he finds a vast, glittering array of food and a bushily-bearded, fully furred giant.  “Come over here, you weird little man!  I am the Ghost of Christmas Present!  Now look upon me!  You have never seen the like of me before!”  “Never.”  “Yet how many of my brothers have you rejected in your miserable lifetime!”  “I’ve never met any of your brothers, sir.”  “You have never looked for them.”  “How many of them are there?”  “What year is this?”  “1860.”  “Then I have 1859 brothers.  Every year at this time, one of us visits your puny little planet to spread happiness and to remove as many as we can of the causes of human misery.  That is why I have come to see you, Ebenezer Scrooge.”  Scrooge is levitated to allow the Spirit a closer look.  “You’re a funny-looking little creature.  I must admit, I found it hard to believe you’d be as horrible as my brothers said you’d be, but now I come to look at you, I see they were understating the truth.”  Scrooge protests that he is a man of high principles and generous spirit.  The Ghost forces a large goblet on him and orders him to drink.  Scrooge is reluctant, but finds the beverage to his liking; he says he’s never tasted anything like it before.  “Of course you haven’t.”  “What is it?”  “The milk of human kindness.”  The Spirit begins a poem which becomes a song; he rather dislikes humans, especially Ebenezer Scrooge, but the song is “I Like Life.”  Scrooge explains that he hates life because life hates him.  “You’re an even bigger fool than I took you for.”  The Ghost teaches Scrooge the song; Scrooge  reacts to it as he did the contents of the goblet; reluctant at first, he comes to enjoy it.  He even enjoys being flown across the room by the Ghost.  Eventually the pair of them burst through the glass of the window and sail into the night sky.

     Matthau cries, “My parlor!  What’s happened to my parlor?”  Well, it’s packed with food; a fire blazes in the fireplace.  “I am the Ghost of Christmas Present.  Come in and know me Better, for you have never known the likes of me before!”  “Who are you?”  “The Christmas Spirit.  Come!”  “No!”  Toys under a Christmas tree sing “Listen to the Song of the Christmas Spirit” as a terrified Scrooge is drawn in and shrunk to their size.  He is forced to dance with them, and gradually seems to be enjoying himself.  The Christmas Spirit itself is a tall man with white hair and a white beard.  A wreath rests on his head.  He carries the cornucopia torch, and an empty (but intact) scabbard hangs at his waist.  Finally, catching up Scrooge and B.A.H. Humbug, he hurls them through the window.  “I shall fall!”  “Touch my robe and be lifted!”  They fly.

     Willie the Giant plays McDuck’s Christmas Present, so he is a proper giant, four stories tall, calling “Fee Fi Fo Fum” as he looks around for Scrooge.  Scrooge thinks he’s going to be devoured, but the Ghost, showing him to room heaped with food, tells him there are better things to eat than a distasteful little miser.  “Where did this all come from?”  ””From the heart, Scrooge!  It is the food of generosity, which you have long denied your fellow man.”  “Nobody has ever shown ME generosity.”  “You’ve never given them reason to.  And yet there are still some who find enough warmth in their hearts even for the likes of you.”  “No acquaintance of mine, I assure you.”  “You’ll see.”  The Ghost pushes the roof off the house and starts away.  (Shall we note at this point that though in this version, Scrooge carries Christmas Past with him, he is carried away by Christmas Present?  Or are we overthinking things?)

     Scott is told to “Come in!”  Scrooge is grim in reply: “I intend to,.”  He blinks at the light until it is dimmed.  “Come in, and know me better, man!  You’ve never seen the likes of me before, eh?”  “That’s quite true,” says Scrooge, his expression one of wonder and confusion, “I have not.”  The Ghost is a robust bearded man who likes to laugh.  “You never walked forth with any of the younger members of my family.”  “No, not that I remember.”  “Nor any of my elder brothers, born these late years?”  “No, I’m afraid not, no.  Do you have many brothers, Spirit?”  “Over eighteen hundred.”  “A tremendous family to provide for!”  This remark, which IS a bit mercenary if you think about it, seems to offend the Ghost.  “Take hold of my robe, Ebenezer Scrooge!”

     The roliest poliest softest giant in all creation calls to Caine, heartily identifying himself twice, saying “Come in and know me better man!” no fewer than three times.  Scrooge notes, “You’re a little absent-minded, Spirit.”  “No, I’m a LARGE absent-minded Spirit!”  He and Scrooge chuckle heartily about this.  The Ghost goes on to explain that his mind is filled with the here and now, “And the now is Christmas!”  “I don’t believe I’ve met anyone like you before.”  The Ghost is surprised.  “Really?  Over 1800 of my brothers have gone before me.”  Scrooge ventures a little joke about grocery bills; they laugh inordinately over it, and the Giant shrinks a little toward Scrooge’s size.  “Have you ever noticed how everything seems wonderful at Christmas?”  Scrooge replies, with some regret, “In all honesty, Spirit: no.  Perhaps I’ve never understood about Christmas.”  “Before the day is done, you WILL understand.”  He marches over to throw open the window, tossing the eavesdropping Dickens and Rizzo into the snow once more.

     When Curry is called, he closes his bed curtains.  Light forces them back.  “Come out, come out, and know me better!”  The light flies back to the Ghost, a Black woman in a green gown.  “No!  Gi away!”  Debit growls at the Spirit, but she throws him a leg of lamb.  “I bet you’ve never had a Guest like me before.”  Scrooge is still hiding; she takes a deep breath and blows the covers away.  They converse as in the text, though when she mentions the other members of her family, Scrooge asks “Do you have many sisters?”  “Nearly nineteen hundred.  Come!  Touch my robe!”  “After that last Spirit, I’d rather not.”  “This is not a multiple choice, Mr. Grumpy-face.”  He says he can’t leave his dog; she points out that Debit is obviously happy with that bone.  As she snatches him up and sails out into the night, he grumbles, “I’ve got to get a lock for that window.”

     Stewart finds a dark-haired giant, not quite bare-chested, not so brightly lit; this Ghost relies on flickering firelight.  “Come in and know me better, man!  Have you never seen anything like this before?”  “Not in this house.”  The Ghost laughs; they discuss the younger members of the Ghost’s family.  Scrooge’s line about providing for so large a family seems to offend this Ghost as well.  He is stern as he rises.  Stewart asks him to go ahead with whatever he has in mind.  “I’d like to get this over and done with.”  He moves like a condemned man on the gallows as he goes to touch the robe.

FUSS FUSS FUSS #12:  How Do You Like Him Now?

     Ghosts of Christmas Present regard Scrooge with a mixture of amusement and contempt.  Lined up in order, from Most Amused to Most Annoyed, one must begin with Caine’s Christmas Present, a large-hearted soul who honestly believes everyone considers Christmas a time to be jolly and generous, and work to the other end in this order

     Caine

     Curry

      March

      Sim I

     Owen

     Sim II

Scott

     Magoo

     Stewart

     Matthau: this Spirit is sort of a midpoint, neither very amused nor contemptuous, but more of warm, happy soul who will not take “no” for an answer

     Haddrick

     McDuck

     Rathbone

     Hicks

     Finney

     Finney’s Ghost doesn’t seem to have any affection for humans or Earth (so presumably they have Christmas other places, too) and particularly dislikes Scrooge, calling him weird, horrible, unpleasant, and funny-looking.

     For their part, most Scrooges greet this Ghost with terror, though a few, like the textual Scrooge, are merely resigned to their fate.  Sim I seems merely dismayed, while Scott is grimly angry.  Caine, of course, seems to be as pleased by the encounter as the Ghost