Blogsy Babbles

     “Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?” asked Scrooge.

     “I am!”

     The voice was soft and gentle.  Singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance.

     “Who, and what, are you?” Scrooge demanded.

     “I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

     “Long Past?” inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish nature.

     “No.  Your past.”

     Perhaps, Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if anybody could have asked him; but he had a special desire to see the Spirit in his cap, and begged him to be covered.

     “What?” exclaimed the Ghost, “would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give?  Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow?”

     Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend, or any knowledge of having willfully “bonneted” the Spirit at any period of his life.  He then made bold to inquire what business brought him there.

     “Your welfare!” said the Ghost.

     Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive to that end.  The Spirit must have heard him thinking for it said immediately:

     “Your reclamation, then.  Take heed!”

     It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently by the arm.

     “Rise!  And walk with me!”

     It would have been vain for Scrooge to plead that the weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes; that bed was warm, and the thermometer a long way below freezing; that he was clad but lightly in his slippers, dressing-gown, and nightcap; and that he had a cold upon him at that time.  The grasp, though gentle as a woman’s hand, was not to be resisted.  He rose; but finding that the Spirit made towards the window, clasped its robe in supplication.

     “I am a mortal,” Scrooge remonstrated, “and liable to fall.”

     “Bear but a touch of my hand THERE,” said the Spirit, laying it upon his heart, “And you shall be upheld in more than this!”

     This passage holds a lot of classic lines, which does not keep filmmakers from changing them.  (Amazing, for starters, how many bits were not dialogue in the original at all; Scrooge only THINKS about a night of unbroken rest, for example.)  About the only thing omitted outright in most cases is the Spirit’s cap.  When a ghost does carry this in the movies, the Ghost frequently is moved to explain the whole metaphor, which Dickens thought we’d be able to get on our own.  Since no two Ghosts seem to agree on its significance, though, maybe he was wrong.

     Hicks skips all of this.  His Ghost simply tells him, “I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.  I am here to show you the things that have been.  Look back beyond the gulf of vanished years.”

     “Are you the Spirit I was told to expect?” asks Owen, “Who are you?”  “I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”  She approaches; Scrooge cries, “The light!  It hurts my eyes!~  It blinds me!”  “I’m not surprised,” is the Ghost’s calm response, “It’s the warming light of cheerfulness, the light of gratitude to others.”  “I’ve never seen it before.”  Again, she is unsurprised; she tells Scrooge that men of greed like him have long forgotten gratitude.  “Oh.  What’s your business with me?”  “Your welfare, your reclamation: rise and walk with me.”  Scrooge climbs wearily out of bed.  The window opens; Scrooge looks around in apprehension.  “We spirits have no fear,” she assures him.  “But I’m not a spirit!”  “Bear but a touch of my hand on your heart and you shall be safe.”

     Oh, look at the expression on Sim I’s face!  When told the Spirit is here for his welfare, he responds “My welfare.”  The Ghost comprehends.  “Your reclamation, then.  Take heed, rise, and walk with me.”  A lift of the ghostly hand makes the distant window slide open.  Scrooge doesn’t care for the trick.  “Through the window?”  “Are you afraid?”  Scrooge explains that he is a mortal, and liable to fall, but the way he shuffles his feet and pulls at the collar of his robe show this is merely a schoolboy excuse; he just doesn’t want to go.  They complete the dialogue as written.

     March asks “Are you the Spirit I was to expect?”  “I am.”  “Odd.  Very odd.  You resemble HER so very much.  What Spirit are you?”  “I am the Spirit of Christmas Past.”  “What past?”  “Your past, among others.”  “What did you wish to see me about,” says the constant man of business.  “Your welfare.”  “I;ve had so little sleep.”  “I am sent to save you from yourself.  You have forgotten what the world is like for children.”  She pushes the window open.  “Come with me.”  “as I am?”  “As you are.”  “Which way?”  She indicates the shutters and he draws back.  “No!  Not that way!  I shall fall!”  “Not when you’re with me.”

     Rathbone boils this down considerably.  “Are you the Spirit whose coming was foretold to me?”  “I am.”  “Who and what are you?”  “I am the Spirit of Christmas Past.”  “And what business brings you here?”  “Your welfare and your reclamation.  Come with me.”  At the window, Scrooge pulls back.  “But I am a mortal!”  Something about the Spirit’s face makes him moderate his tone and he adds, more quietly, “And liable to fall.”  “Bear but a touch of my hand here and you shall be upheld in more than this.”  The hand does go to Scrooge’s chest.

     When told why the Ghost is there, Magoo replies, “Well, I’m much obliged, but a good night of unbroken rest is what I need, of you’re so concerned.”  “Rise, and walk with me.”  “Oh, humbug!  Forcing a fellow to leave his bed in the middle of the night!”  “Come!”  He complains of being cold, and of not having a decent stitch to warm his old bones.  When close enough to see the window is their destination, he whines about that as well.  “Touch my hand, and you shall be upheld.”

     Haddrick stammers in terror.  The dialogue about “Your past” and “Your welfare” is omitted.  “’Tis hardly the hour or the weather for pedestrian purposes,” he complains, “It is below freezing and I am but lightly clad.”  The Ghost touches his hand to lead him out.  “I’m mortal, don’t forget, and likely to fall.”  (Since we have not approached a window, where he is going to fall is not immediately obvious.)

     After Sim II’s frightened stammering, the scene moves quickly past a lot of unuttered dialogue.

     Finney demands, “Who are you?”  “I am the Spirit whose coming was foretold to you.”  “You don’t look like a Ghost.”  “Thank you.”  “May I inquire more precisely who or what you are?”  The dialogue follows much as Dickens wrote it, without any of the cap business.  When his welfare comes up, Scrooge points out, “To be awakened by a ghost at one o’clock in the morning is hardly conducive to my welfare.”  “Your redemption, then.  Rise!  And walk with me.”  “Where are we going?”  “We are going to look at your childhood.”

     Matthau is informed, “I am the Ghost of Christmas past.”  “Long past?”  “Your past.  Here.  Hold my hand.”

     The Ghost has to bang on the alarm clock bell to wake McDuck.  “Well?” he demands, when Scrooge does wake up, “About time!  Haven’t got all night, y’know.”  Startled, Scrooge asks, “Who are you?”  “Why, I’m the Ghost of Christmas Past.”  “Oh.”  Scrooge rolls over to go back to sleep, adding, “I thought you’d be taller.”  The Ghost snaps that if men were measured by kindness, Scrooge himself would be no bigger than a speck of dust.  “Kindness is of little use in this world,” Says Scrooge, sleepily.  “You didn’t always think so.  Come on, Scrooge: it’s time to go.”  “Then go!”  The Ghost opens a window, allowing a gust of cold wind to startle Scrooge.  “What are you going?”  “We’re going to visit your past.”  “I’m not going out there. I’ll fall!”  “Just hold on.”  Scrooge clutches the miniature ghost.

     Scott’s ghost is stern.  She explains that HER light is the light of truth.  When he makes a crack about a night of unbroken sleep, she warns him severely, “Be careful, Ebenezer Scrooge.  I speak of your reclamation.”  Scrooge’s expressions shows he never really thought she’d listen to reason.  “Ah.  Well, if tit’s reclamation, then let’s get on with it.”  They do not bother with the window; mist surrounds them.  “Come.  We shall be invisible, and silent as the grave.  You will see a child, a youth; you will see yourself, Ebenezer.”

     Caine asks “Are you the Spirit whose coming was foretold to me?”  “I am.”  “But you’re just a child.”  “I can remember nearly 1900 years.”  A little later, he objects that a night of unbroken rest might be better for his welfare, she replies, “Your salvation, then.”  They head for the window; when he shows apprehension, she assures him, “A touch of my hand, and you shall fly.”

     Curry is so startled he bangs his head on the headboard of the bed.  When he inquires whether this is the first Spirit Jacob talked about, the Ghost tells him, “Spot on, Guvnor.  I’m the Ghost of Christmas past.”  The reclamation/welfare bit is reduced to “It’s for your own good.”  At the window, the Ghost calls, “Shuffle your stumps, Scrooge!”  Scrooge, having some spirit left of his own, snaps, “I’m not made of mist and moonlight, like you.”  The Ghost takes his wrist and pulls him out.  Debit, chomping tight to the hem of the dressing gown, tries to hold Scrooge back, and winds up being towed through the air as well.

     Stewart shields his eyes against the light of the Spirit, and begs the Ghost to don that cap.  “Be covered.”  The ghost becomes fierce in reply but, when Scrooge apologizes, does tone down his light just a touch.  When told to rise, Scrooge overflows with excuses.  “Some other time, perhaps.  I’m not dressed.  I have a weak chest, monstrous head cold….”  The Ghost insists, and Scrooge, shaking his head, puts out a hand.  He is genuinely frightened as they near the window.  “All I have to do is touch you…there.”  The Ghost lays a hand on Scrooge’s chest.

FUSS FUSS FUSS #8: How Do You Feel About This?

   The Ghost of Christmas Past is here to point out inconsistencies in Ebenezer Scrooge’s past and, as hinted at the very end of the passage, try to touch his heart.  Dicken sketches the lessons for us, but does not tell us what the teacher thinks of the pupil.  Was the Ghost supposed to be neutral?  Gently persuasive?  Ironic?  Downright nasty?  All these angles can be seen in various versions, though the preference seems to be for an otherworldly serenity.  I read the different Pasts as

     VOICE OF DOOM: Hicks

     CALM DETACHMENT: Owen, Sim I, March, Rathbone, Magoo, Sim II, Matthau, Caine, Stewart

     DISAPPOINTMENT: Haddrick

     AMUSED CONTEMPT: McDuck, Scott, Curry

     LOFTY CONTEMPT: Finney

     Some Ghosts show a change of heart as they move through the scenes of Scrooge’s past.  Magoo’s Ghost becomes suddenly sardonic at the end, apparently disgusted with her charge.  Curry’s Ghost, who gets a great deal of joy out of tormenting Scrooge, begins to show sympathy as the young Scrooge and Belle break their engagement, as does Finney’s Ghost.  Scott’s, however, does not soften in the slightest, becoming, if anything, even stonier as they move along.

     The curtains of the bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand.  Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his back, but those to which his face was addressed.  The curtains of his bed were drawn aside and Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude,  found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them; as close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in spirit at your elbow.

     It was a strange figure—like a child; yet not so like a child as like an old an, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded from the view, and being diminished to a child’s proportion.  Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrnle in it, ad the tenderest bloom was on the skin.  The arms were very long and muscular;  the hands the same, as if its hold were of uncommon strength.  Its legs and feet, ost delicately formed, were, like those upper members, bare.  It wore a tunic of the purest white; and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful.  It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers.  But the strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm.

     Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing steadiness, was not its strangest quality.  For as it s belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another, and what was light one instant, at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in distinctness being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body; of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away.  And in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again, distinct and clear as ever.

     Well, this is clearly unfilmable as written.  Oh, we have the gadgetry to do it, especially nowadays, but if you did produce a computer projection which reproduced exactly what Dickens had in mind, this representation of mingled and fading memories, no one could look at it for very long, while at the same time, few of us would have an eye for anything else happening onscreen.  As is pointed out in The Annotated Christmas Carol, this is also the one ghost John Leech did not attempt to show us in his illustrations for the first edition of the book itself.

     So Ghosts of Christmas Past come in a variety on the screen.

     THE ORIGINAL

     Sim II makes the attempt.  This apparition is a girl (though Scrooge, true to the text, address it as “Sir”) who is chubby, thin, pump again, had one head, then two then three, then one again as her hands and arms wither and grow young again repeatedly.  She carries a sprig of holly and a cap, and wears a skirt much plumped out by crinolines or ectoplasm.  She has a sash, and walks barefoot.  Her voice is that of a middle-aged woman.

    MEN

     Hicks gets a luminous outline of a man.  Its voice is serene, and detached.

     A blob of light in Sim I resolves itself into a benign old man with long white hair, wearing a white robe and cape.  He is barefoot, with a glittering sash at his waist and a garland about his neck.

     Rathbone, having just checked the locks on his door, turns to find a Biblical Patriarch fading into view.  The figure, which wears a white robe and sash (and gloves), beckons.

     Haddrick has an old man with a beard and a crozier.  He wears a robe, and is the picture of a gentle elderly saint.  His voice is high and slightly sepulchral.

     Matthau meets a small old man with a slight resemblance to Jacob Marley.  Rays of light rise from this ghost’s head in a sort of crown, and he wears a white brown with colored collar and cuffs, and a belt.  In one hand he carries the cap, in the other a sprig of holly.

     Stewart gets a small older manchild with long hair.  His clothes are silvery-satiny, and he is luminescent, with an aura.  He carries a cap and wears a necklace of holly.  His clothes and face could make him a solemn official rom some distant medieval banquet, or a grave jester, or even a Muppet.  His attitude is calm, slow, serene.

     WOMEN

     Owen watches as a lump of light resolves itself into a Hollywood ingenue auditioning for the role of Glinda the Good.  She has golden ringlets, a nurse’s cap with a star on it, and a belted satin gown.

     March is rousted from bed when his shutters fly open, allowing a cold wind to blow back his bedcurtains.  He rises to close the shutters but a bright light alerts hi to strange doings.  Turning, he finds a fresh-faced brunette with a smile.  Her hair is pulled back under a shining circlet, and her plain white gown is cut rather daringly in front.

     Magoo finds a girl (or just possibly a boy) with neatly bobbed blonde hair, a tunic and short skirt (or a long tunic belted in the middle) and shoes bound at the ankle.  A flame rides above her head; she holds a sprig of holly in one hand.

     Finney gets a very solid=looking matron in a fashionable red dress and very expensive hat.  Her earrings glitter, and she wears a black choker.  Hands clad in white gloves reside within a fur muff.  She is very sure of herself, and obviously intends to take no nonsense from any Ebenezer Scrooge.

     Scott meets a woman whose voice is older than her face.  She wears a white robe with a sash of leaves.  She is barefoot, a tad feral, and carries holly in one hand while that cap hangs from a ribbon attached at her waist.

     THE ECCENTRIC

     McDuck gets Jiminy Cricket.

     Caine, after opening the bedcurtains himself and brandishing a poker, watches the light that woke hi coalesce into a diaphanous clump of white gauze with a girl’s head; this head has long blonde hair and a hat.  The voice is that of a young girl; her hand, when she extends it to Scrooge, is that of a baby.

     Curry gets an impudent pearlie who laughs WAY too much.

Stave Two: The First of the Three Spirits

     When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber.  He was endeavoring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neighboring clock struck the four quarters.  So he waited for the hour.

     To his great astonishment, the heavy bell went on from six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve, then stopped.  Twelve!  It was past two when he went to bed.  The clock was wrong.  An icicle must have got into the works.  Twelve!

     He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most preposterous clock.  Its rapid little pulse beat twelve, and stopped.

     “Why, it isn’t possible,” said Scrooge, “that I can have slept through a whole day and far into another night.  It isn’t possible that something has happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon!”

     The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed, and groped his way to the window.  He was obliged to rub the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown before he could see anything; and could see very little then.  All he could make out was, that it was still very foggy and extremely cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and fro, and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been if night had beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the world.  This was a great relief, because “three days after sight of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge on his order,” and so forth, would have become a mere United States’ security if there were no days to count by.

     Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought it over and over and over, and could make nothing of it.  The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and the more he endeavoured not to think, the more he thought.  Marley’s Ghost bothered him exceedingly.  Every time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first position, and presented the same problem to be worked all through, “Was it a dream or not?”

     Scrooge ay in this state until the chimes had gone three quarters more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled one.  He resolved to lie awake until the hour was passed; and, considering that he could no more go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was perhaps the wisest resolution in his power.

     The quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock.  At length it broke upon his listening ear.

     “Ding, dong!”

     “A quarter past,” said Scrooge, counting.

      :Ding, dong!”

     “Half past,” said Scrooge.

     “Ding, dong!”

     “A quarter to it,” said Scrooge.

     “Ding, dong!”

     “The hour itself,” said Scrooge, triumphantly, “and nothing else!”

     He spoke before the hour bel sounded, which it now did with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy ONE.  Lights flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn.

     Most of this is not to be found in screen Carols, not until the clock strikes one.  It’s a matter of timing, literally: if you’ve rearranged the time Scrooge goes to bed, you can’t have him getting all upset because twenty-two hours have slipped by.  (Furthermore, he lies there thinking about it for an hour: how do you film THAT?)  A clock striking one and a worried murmur from our host s about as far as this goes.  We want to get on with the GHOSTS.

     In Hicks, we watch a lamplighter putting out the streetlights.  Scrooge reaches for something in his sleep.  The night watchman calls “Twelve o’clock and all’s well!”  Scrooge wakes; a light can be seen at the parting of the bedcurtains.  Something materializes within this.

     Owen’s mantel clock strikes; the candle dies.  Scrooge peers out from under the covers and checks his watch.  “Humbug!”  The clock chimes one; there is sudden light, and the curtains jerk aside by themselves.  Scrooge stares.

     Sim I has a clock striking, and the room filling with light.  Scrooge’s eyes slide to the right; the bedcurtains here slide aside of their own accord.

      March lies restlessly in bed, listening.  :And now, the hour itself.  One o’clock.  I’ve only slept a few minutes…or else most of the day.”  This is the only reference in these films to Scrooge’s concern about whether it is day or night, and it doesn’t seem to bother him much.  He rolls over.

     Magoo’s clock goes crazy.  Scrooge starts when it strikes one, and grumbles about being unable to sleep.

     Haddrick hears a clock striking outdoors; a clock within the room confirms the hour.  “One o’clock?” he says.  “And no ghost?  I must have dreamed up Marley.”  He turns to his right and stares in horror.

     An overhead shot shows us Sim II in  bed.  As he wakes with a start, the narrator explains that Scrooge awoke and the room filled with light.  A hand moves the bedcurtains from outside.

     Finney is just settling into bed when the clock strikes one.  The sound shocks him, and he checks his own clock to verify the time.  There is a clatter; he raises his eyes to a visitor.

     McDuck snores gustily.  We see him through the eyes of the Spirit, who bounds into the room, jumps to the bedside table, all of which suggests something small has arrived.  We watch him light the candle and then smack the bell of the alarm clock with the handle of his umbrella.

     A clock in the tower strikes one, and the watch in the stand by Scott’s bed (a “repeater” like the one in the text) reinforces this by playing a little of the theme song.  Scrooge is apprehensive.  “One!  What was it Marley said?”  He looks around.  “Nothing!  Just a dream.”  A wind rises, followed by a twinkling light, and suddenly his visitor is there.

     We see Caine in an overhead shot; he is sleeping on top of his covers, still in his dressing gown.  The mechanical clock on his mantel strikes one, he opens his eyes, and his candle goes out.  Dickens, outdoors, rises to declaim, “Expect the first Ghost when the clock strikes one!”  Scrooge’s room is flooded with light.

     The clock of Curry’s mantel strikes one.  The window curtains are blowen by wind.  There is thunder and a small explosion.  Scrooge sleeps through all of this, and has to be wakened by a ghost with a diabolical cackle, who tickles his face with a sprig of holly.

     Stewart, lying on his bed, still in his dressing gown, newspaper to one side, actually performs the whole “quarter past” sequence.  “The hour itself, and nothing’s happened.”  Then the clock strikes one, and light streams in.  He gasps in horror.  A hand parts the bedcurtains.

     The apparition walked backward from him; and at every step it took. The window raised itself a little, so that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open.  It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did.  When they were within two paces of each other, Marley’s ghost held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer.  Scrooge stopped.

     Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear: for on the raising of the hand, he became sensible of confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory.  The spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out upon the bleak, dark night.

     Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity, he looked out.

     The air filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went.  Every one of them wore chains like Marley’s Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free.  Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives.  He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door-step.  The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power forever.

     Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded them, he could not tell.  But they and their spirit voices faded together; And the night became as it had been when he walked home.

     Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost had entered.  It was double-locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed.  He tried to say “Humbug!” but stopped on the first syllable.  And being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose; went straight to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.

     So Scrooge and Marley are hardly unique: plenty of businessmen (and Dickens unsubtly hints, politicians) have the same problem afterlives.  There seems to be no definite tradition on how to render this passage.  That wretched woman and infant (often a beggar spurned by Scrooge on his way home) frequently appears as well.  Scrooge’s response to it all is generally uniform as well: he’ll wind up in bed with the bedcurtains drawn and the blankets over his head.

     About half these versions omit the wandering ghosts.

     Hicks sees no spirits (and WE haven’t even seen Marley, of course).  He seems terrified at Marley’s departure, and runs after the Spirit only he can see, crying “Marley! Marley!”  He looks out the opened window into a thundering snowstorm, but doesn’t find his old partner.  Turning away with a “Bah, hum….” He jumps as the window slams down.  When he looks outside again, there is no storm.

      Owen’s Marley simply vanishes.  Scrooge closes the window curtains, jumps into bed, and draws the bedcurtains.

     March’s Marley begins to turn transparent, bewailing his fate.  He regards his account book with revulsion, and throws it from him just before going fully invisible.  A dirge from unseen voices upsets Scrooge, who moves about the room as if seeking the sources of the sound.  He finally collapses in a corner.  Rising later, he realizes he has simply had a nightmare when he dozed off, and declares it all to be humbug.  On his way toward his bed, he trips over the account book Marley threw on the floor, shrieks, leaps into bed, and draws the curtains.

     Rathbone simply waves bye-bye and Marley vanishes.  In a sudden panic, Scrooge leaps up to check the locks on the door.  “Humbug!” he declares, and burps.  “A slight disorder of the stomach.”

     Haddrick’s Marley delivers the “Look to see me no more” speech and vanishes.  Growling “Bah! Humbug!” Scrooge toddles off to bed, apparently unabashed.

     McDuck, who seems to be the only Scrooge looking forward to the three spirits coming to do him a favor, watches Marley retreat carefully past the cane that tripped him up at first.  As the Ghost vanishes through the door, Scrooge recalls that loose floorboard, and warns Marley too late.  Giving the traditional Goofy-falling-into-disaster cry, Marley departs from our story forever.  Scrooge, dressed for bed now, searches his room and goes to bed growling “Spirits!  Humbug!”

     Scott’s Marley backs to the window.  “Look to see me no more!  Look that you may remember what has passed between us.”  The Ghost’s mouth closes with a click.  The window shoots up, and Marley vanishes into a sky filled with wailing and screaming.  When Scrooge reaches the window, he sees only his lonely lane.  “Humbug!”  He examines the locks, and is puzzled by them.  He finally concludes, shaking his head, “Something I et.”

     Caine’s Marley Brothers vanish behind the railing whence they came.  The fireplace relights itself.  Scrooge looks around as, below and outside, Dickens and Rizzo tell us the rest of the scene.  Scrooge gets into bed, draws the curtains, and growls “Bah!  Humbug!”

     Other versions show us the wandering spirits; a few make much of them.

     Marley tells Sim I “Look to see me no more.”  The window shoots up.  “But look here, so you may remember for your own sake what has passed between us.”  Scrooge, proving he can grovel and run at the same time, hurries up to Marley.  At the window he can see a circle of transparent chained figures “lamenting” around a starving woman and child.  (They are sort of wailing and waving their arms as a chorus.)  Scrooge asks why they lament, and is told about trying to interfere for good in the affairs of humankind.  Marley then vanishes, only to reappear among the lamenters.  Scrooge, horrified, covers his ears.  He runs sobbing to bed, pulls the curtains, and draws the covers up over his head.

     Magoo follows the wailing Marley to the window.  Earlier, he saw hapless ghosts, well-dressed men burdened with chains, wailing on the wind; now he sees only snow.  Putting out one hand, he catches some of the falling snow in his hand, peers at it, and declares “Humbug!”  Theorizing that he dozed off and had a nightmare, he retreats to bed, pulls the covers over his head, and, trembling violently, emits one more querulous “Humbug!”

     Sim II’s Marley backs to the window, closing his dangling mouth with a click.  Wailing, he is sucked out into the night.  The narrator tells us that the air is filled with moaning phantoms; we see faces gaunt with despair, and long, fleshless hands being extended to a freezing woman.  The narrator explains about them lacking the power to interfere for good in human matters.  The vision utterly devastates Scrooge, who slams the windows, runs to bed, leaps in, and closes the curtains.

     Finney is taken on a wild ride through the skies, where Marley sings to him about the disfigured corpselike figures he sees around him.  Later (as explained previously) when Marley is reunited with Scrooge, Marley backs out to the door through which he entered, using the same shambling gait.  Just before the door closes behind him, one ghostly hand comes back into the room to wave.  “Farewell, Scrooge!”  Scrooge runs to look, and finds the door closed and locked.  “Three ghosts?  Ha!  Three humbugs!”  He goes to bed, pursuing his usual routine: hiding his pocket watch in a secret spot beneath the chamberpot, transferring something else from a coin purse to a pouch he wears around his neck.  He seems unmoved by the whole episode.

     Matthau’s Marley vanishes but reappears at the window, which has opened of itself.  He beckons to Scrooge, who shakes his head vehemently.  Marley beckons again, and Scrooge is lifted from his bed and brought to the window.  Marley shows him the suffering spirits below, all well-dressed men hung with chains.  “And I must with them.  Observe and know our misery, O Scrooge: how we seek to do good in human matters but have lost the power forever.”  The ghosts, who stand in rows and all look kind of like Marley, call “Repent!’  Scrooge replies, “No! No!”  He shuts the window, leaps back into bed, and yanks the bedcurtains shut.  B.A.H. Humbug looks out and sees that the ghosts are gone.

     Curry’s vision is of two ghosts trying to give food to a freezing woman.  “When we are dead,” Marley tells him, “We can no longer do any earthly good.”  Marley vanishes in flame.  Scrooge looks for him under the bed, thumps the floor, and cries “No ghosts!”  Debit licks his face and receives a “Bah humbug!” as reward.

     Stewart’s Marley, saying “Look to see me no more, and, for your own sake, remember what has passed between us,” walks to the window.  The shutters fold open on their own, and the sash rises.  Marley points outside, his expression one of “See? I told you!”  Scrooge steps to the window to see white transparent figures sailing throughout the night sky.  One white-haired man encumbered by a safe reaches imploringly toward a freezing woman and child.  “These spirits try to interfere for good in human affairs but have lost the power forever.  That is the curse we bear.”  Scrooge looks as if he is being forced against his will to take all this seriously, but Marley has moved on.  Scrooge slams the shutters without closing the window, and sets his back against them, worried and confused.