JUNE 2021 REVIEW: "LOVE STORY"

Official PoCo Muse Film Critic Jeff Schultz revisits Love Story for his June 2021 Review.

It’s officially summer which means we are in the blockbuster movie season. Revisiting the Premier Theatre’s golden anniversary in 1971, it would be a few years until such a thing would be established with the release of “Jaws” in 1975. Summers before then would be a slower time for movie theaters since people spent more time outdoors, but this month’s Premier movie is a definition blockbuster with lines that would have stretched down Lafayette Street. Unlike summer hits of today, this one doesn’t have space creatures that attack by sound or Marvel superheroes but presents the simple tale of Ivy League boy meets girl from Radcliffe.

Following last month’s movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” which was the Hollywood’s top moneymaker in 1969, we now look at biggest smash from 1970, “Love Story,” which came to the Premier during its wide release in June 1971. It stars Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal and features a lugubrious theme melody from composer Francis Lai, on location filming at Harvard’s campus, a cameo by Tommy Lee Jones, and more sap than a Christmas tree farm. Paramount Pictures made the film on a shoestring sum of $2 million and raked in $173 million worldwide, dragging the studio out of its financial slump. While the public ate it up, “Love Story” caught sneers from a good number of critics who felt it didn’t deserve its box office windfall, arguing the film was nothing more than a soap opera.

The “soap opera” opens with Oliver Barrett III staring alone at an empty ice skating rank. He is traumatized by the death of Jennifer, his wife, who succumbed to cancer at the young age of 25 (I wouldn’t have told you the ending but these are Oliver’s first lines). His grief beckons us to lend our ears. In flashback, Oliver visits Radcliffe’s library for books he can’t find at Harvard’s library. He asks the chic girl working the desk who scolds him for being a “preppie” but wiles him into taking her for coffee. He enjoys her scathing wit and through playful glowering, a romance develops. Like in any classic love story, theirs seems doomed, this time at the disapproval of Oliver’s rich father who hoped better for his son than choosing a future with a daughter of a small-time baker. Oliver and Jenny marry but Oliver grows more vexed by the strained relationship with his father and Jenny tries to help him reconcile, although it brings problems of its own. Soon the couple decide they want to start a family and after tests, a doctor confides in Oliver that his wife is terminally ill. He feels guilty of not giving Jenny a better life but she embraces him before she dies and lets him know that “love is never having to say you’re sorry.”

To the credit of “Love Story,” popular romance films that came before it were known to be cheesy. They range from cornball like “Love Finds Andy Hardy” for example to overly dramatic like “Wuthering Heights” and “Gone With the Wind” in Hollywood’s golden age. In the 1950s, director Douglas Sirk made a number of movies that were quickly identified as melodramatic and seen as campy today but they looked deeper at social issues and taboos. The 1960s had its own mix of hokey (e.g. the “Gidget” series) and ambitious (“Doctor Zhivago”). What made “Love Story” an easy target for parody is the line “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” It’s enough to make some people cry or gag. O’Neal showed a bit of self-deprecating humor later in the 1972 film “What’s Up, Doc?” when Barbara Streisand quotes him the phrase and he responds, “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” Arthur Hiller, director of “Love Story,” talked about his interpretation of the line saying its message is not only for Oliver and Jenny but a message to a public divided by social issues at the time. Just because you disagree with someone about something does not mean you can’t love the person, Hiller said.

Erich Segal, who wrote both the novel and screenplay of “Love Story”, spent more time defending his work than basking in its success. “I never meant for it to be considered serious art,” he told a crowd while speaking at UCLA. Segal, who worked on the 1968 animated Beatles film “Yellow Submarine,” said he wrote a script after hearing a former student’s woeful experience of losing their spouse. He claimed every studio turned him down and so he published it as a book instead. After it was read by one out of every five Americans, someone changed their mind about doing the movie. “Love Story” was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards, a rare category for a movie whose book debuted first.

What I enjoy most about “Love Story” is how much it is of its time. I don’t follow fashion too closely (I doubt I can tell the difference between an issue of Vogue Magazine and Good Housekeeping) but I love seeing the roll-neck sweaters, yellow plaid skirts, popped collars, camel hair coats and a print cotton Camp Tuckahoe T-shirt (which fans can buy online). Probably my favorite scene is seeing Jenny and Oliver’s frolic on Harvard’s football stadium knee-deep in snow with Lai’s harpsichord and oohing vocals on the soundtrack. It’s the schmaltziest thing you’ll ever see at the movies.

I think many people went to see “Love Story” because it takes a classic storyline and inserts it with modern characters. Segal writes Oliver and Jenny as equals with realistic problems and goals and is not afraid for them to let loose with some foul language now and then (which the Premier was sure to warn parents about in its ad despite the “GP” rating). I like the movie in the beginning when it’s simply focused on them. It’s in the second half that loses much of my attention when the plot steers towards Oliver’s desperate attempts to solve matters with his father. Though “Love Story” is a quintessential tearjerker, I have to agree with Segal that it shouldn’t be regarded too highly. My rating is 2 ½ out of 4 stars. Normally I’d apologize if you don’t agree with me, but “Love Story” says I don’t have to.

View the trailer for Love Story here.

MAY 2021 REVIEW: “BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID”

Official PoCo Muse Film Critic Jeff Schultz revisits Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for his May 2021 Review.

This marks the sixth edition of Going Back to the Movies and I’ve never properly made the disclaimer (or better yet confession) that despite talking about films shown there, I never stepped into the Premier Theatre. My excuse is a fair one; I was not born yet when the Premier closed in 1982. Subsequently, I have gathered two things of fact about this legendary theater in Valparaiso. One, that people saw “Star Wars” up to 20 times when it played all through the summer of 1977. Two, everybody went to the theater to see “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” It played there 50 years ago this month, possibly as a back-by-popular-demand kind of thing since it originally was released in 1969 (being a smaller operation, the Premier did not always have first-run movies). Either way, you were lucky if you found a parking space for a showing.

“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” was the most popular movie at the nation’s box office for 1969 and while it has many attributes, the greatest contributor of its success would have to be the paring of Paul Newman and Robert Redford as the leads, their first film together. You could say that the movie kicked off the “bromance” genre even before the term was coined and it may be the finest buddy film ever made. Compared to Redford, Newman was more established in Hollywood with starring roles as the young pool shark in “The Hustler” opposite Jackie Gleason’s Minnesota Fats, the sleek private eye in “Harper”, and the laid-back but defiant “Cool Hand Luke” where he shook the faith of an entire prison camp by eating 50 hard-boiled eggs in under an hour. Redford’s résumé consisted of a few roles in films with bigger stars such as Marlon Brando and Natalie Wood. His most recent performance was the romantic comedy “Barefoot in the Park” with Jane Fonda. Newman fought for Redford to be his co-star while the studio eyed others like Warren Beatty and Steve McQueen for the role of the Sundance Kid.

Calling “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” a western is valid, but what makes it a classic are its aberrations from the genre. It has more in common with the style of “Bonnie and Clyde” than it does with another popular western released in 1969, “True Grit.” In the heyday of movie westerns in the 1930s and 40s, there were heroes and there were villains. The hero would be played by the likes of John Wayne, Gene Autry or Gary Cooper sticking up for defenseless ranchers against a lawless band of roughnecks trying to muscle their way onto the territory. However, with “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” the heroes are the outlaws. Butch and Sundance are not the menacing type like Henry Fonda’s character in “Once Upon a Time in the West,” also made in the late 60s, but instead are affable, down-to-earth blokes who can laugh at themselves. Sundance is more reserved but Butch is always able to erode his cold exterior and the way the two work opposite of each other makes these characters more believable. The movie has reason for making their characters feel real since they existed in real life. Screenwriter William Goldman wrote the script loosely based on fact after reading about the exploits of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid at the turn of the 20th century with the Hole in the Wall Gang and how the two fled to Bolivia with a woman named Etta Place who was known to be the Sundance Kid’s lover.

Rather than a western, Goldman’s script reads like a rollicking comedy on paper surfeited with one-liners. The dialogue often steals thunder from the visual thrills as we see Butch and Sundance blow up safes on Union Pacific with dynamite. “Well, that oughta do it,” Butch says. Light, hiss, KABOOOOOOM!! Sundance, having his eardrum blown out, says, “You think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?” This attracts a posse hired by the railroad to stop our protagonists. The chase is on through the raw Wyoming landscape until Butch and Sundance are trapped on a rocky cliff and the only way out is a high dive into the river below. Butch says, “We’ll jump.” Sundance avows he can’t swim. “Why, you crazy? The fall will probably kill you.”

Then there is the bicycle scene where Butch rides with Etta, played by Katherine Ross fresh from her career-defining role as Elaine Robinson in “The Graduate,” on the handlebars in the early morning. On the soundtrack is B. J. Thomas singing “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” while we follow them through Etta’s farm as they share an apple plucked from a tree, dodge cows and Butch entertains Etta with amateur stunts after she climbs into the barn. It’s one of the greatest scenes ever in a movie and even more remarkable that it’s in a western. Director George Roy Hill employs great experimentation with aesthetics throughout the movie that even the greatest directors of westerns like John Ford (“The Searchers”) wouldn’t dare try. Could you imagine seeing John Wayne riding a bicycle to pop music? Ford would also not likely approve of still photographs for the South American Getaway scene or starting the film with made-up silent film footage of the Hole in the Wall Gang, but Hill’s nuances reflect the transition of the new Hollywood filmmakers of the time.

“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” won four Oscars for its score, original song, Goldman’s screenplay and exquisite cinematography by Conrad Hall. All these elements plus its performances led by Newman and Redford make it a wonderful piece of entertainment.

A favorite of those who saw it at the Premier 50 years ago, it’s also a collective favorite among the staff of the PoCo Muse, which is why I’m giving it my highest rating of 4 out of 4 stars. 

We’d see Newman and Redford team up with director Hill again for 1973’s “The Sting” which took the top spot for U.S. box office that year as well and additionally the Oscar for Best Picture. The duo surprisingly never appeared in a third film together, but it’s still enough to make them legends like the ones they played on screen.

APRIL 2021 REVIEW: "THE ARISTOCATS"

Official PoCo Muse Film Critic Jeff Schultz revisits The Aristocats for his April 2021 Review.

Everyone who grew up near Valparaiso from the 1950s through the 80s probably remembers seeing a Walt Disney film at the Shauer’s Premier Theatre. For many, it was their first time in a movie theater and the experience of seeing “Cinderella,” “Pinocchio,” or “One Hundred and One Dalmatians” remains a vivid memory. They may also fondly recall seeing a program of Disney cartoon shorts at Christmastime or the 1979 Valpo Popcorn Festival when Goofy came to town.

Nothing could be more exciting as a kid than riding to the theater to see the latest Disney movie and that is why we’re revisiting one for this month’s entry of Going Back to the Movies. “The Aristocats” began its initial run in theaters on Christmas Eve 1970 and made its way to the Premier the following April. To understand how “The Aristocats”’ fits in the Disney canon, a quick study will show us how Walt Disney and his artists crafted their movies.

The name Disney has entertained audiences almost as long as the Premier opened one hundred years ago. Walt Disney made his first cartoon, a six-minute “Laugh-O-Gram” adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood, in 1922. His creation of Mickey Mouse garnered him international fame and prestige and built his ambition to expand his animation into feature films. The initial idea that audiences would take a cartoon seriously for 80 minutes was balked at but Disney proved his critics wrong when he released his first animated film, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” in 1938. Audiences liked it so much that it became the most successful movie ever at the time. While it’s arguably not the first fully animated movie in history, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” singlehandedly created the template for every animated movie that’s been made since, either by Disney or someone else.

What was Disney’s formula for success? Walt noted that to make a feature film out of a fairy tale, there needed to be an equilibrium of plot and character along with plenty of sight gags. Since the lead character is often the dullest, his team had to create a supporting cast that can provide antics when needed. This is evident in other Disney films like “Cinderella” where much of the first half includes comedic chase scenes with the animal characters. Plot is secondary when it comes to classic Disney charm.

Disney also set high standards for his animated films early on using a self-developed multiplane camera to create depth realistically into the image. Artists also used celluloid, or cel, animation with ink and paint which was an expensive and laborious process. After the disappointing box office performance of “Sleeping Beauty” in 1959, the studio opted for a less sophisticated hand-drawn technique and Xerox process with its next feature, “One Hundred and One Dalmatians.” Even with its animation scaled back, the film was a tremendous success with its reliable sight gags along with a modern, hip feel that became the style for Disney’s films over the next few decades including “The Aristocats.”

That Disney charm I spoke of earlier, along with songs by the talented Richard and Robert Sherman, are some of the elements that keep “The Aristocats” afloat while its plot stands a little thin. A family of cats living in 1910s Paris is kidnapped by a jealous butler after the felines are appointed the heirs of their owner’s fortune. The butler, Edgar, carelessly loses the cats as he attempts to get rid of them in the French countryside. Not sure how to find their way home, Duchess and her three kittens feel lost until they meet the resourceful Thomas O’Malley the Alley Cat. Thomas is voiced by Phil Harris who was an actor and bandleader and the voice of Baloo the Bear in the previous Disney movie, “The Jungle Book.” Adults in the audience would also recognize “Green Acres” star Eva Gabor’s voice for Duchess. Louis Armstrong was sought to be the voice of Scat Cat but due to ill health the role went to Scatman Crothers. Legendary French singer Maurice Chevalier sings the title song which was his last recording before his death in 1972.

Again in the Disney formula, it is the supporting characters that steal the show. Duchess and the kittens ambitions lie strictly in their daily exercises of how to be properly pampered pets. Even the villain Edgar is unremarkable. Besides his greedy plots, he is too bumbling to be a real threat. One of the best scenes include two minor characters, a bloodhound and a Bassett hound named Napoleon and Lafayette, who fail miserably at patrolling their turf because they can’t stop butting heads and as a result a “one-wheeled haystack” gets away. Then there’s the “Everybody Wants to Be a Cat” scene which the movie is probably best remembered for with Scat Cat and his gang of cool cats literally bringing down the house in a colorful musical number full of trumpet blasts and jazzy clarinets. They definitely have swing.

For an added attraction, Disney released a 22-minute short “Dad… Can I Borrow the Car?” to accompany “The Aristocats” at the Premier. Since Disney animated films are usually less than 80 minutes long, shorts or cartoons have traditionally been added to pad the running time and it’s still a tradition today, particularly with Pixar releases. In “Dad...Can I Borrow the Car?” Disney took inspiration from avant-garde films of the time and made its own drivers training video that kids would actually watch. Narrated by a young Kurt Russell, it uses a potpourri of stock footage, animation and sound effects to poke fun at the agony of trying to get your driver’s license. This nearly-forgotten bauble you may have seen in your own driver’s ed class can be viewed on YouTube.

I give this combo of “The Aristocats” and “Dad,… Can I Borrow the Car?” 3 out of 4 stars. It’s not a higher degree of three stars I’d give some of the other Disney films from this period, but I’m sure the kids in the audience wouldn’t mind. I imagine many went home begging their parents for a cat, or a car, and were dreaming of what the next Disney film at the Premier would be.

Special Note: Some information in this review came from “The Disney Films,” 3rd Edition, written by Leonard Maltin and published in 1995 by Hyperion. 

On Parade • Orville Redenbacher, Popcorn Queen Jennifer Van Natta, and Goofy stroll down Lincolnway to mark the official festivities of the inaugural Popcorn Festival in downtown Valparaiso on September 15, 1979.

Best Pals • Official Disney ambassador Goofy presented Orville Redenbacher with a Mickey Mouse wristwatch and a card, as Orville Redenbacher Gourmet Popping Corn was the official popcorn of both Disneyland and Walt Disney World in September 1979.

Now Playing • Ad for The Aristocats at the Premier Theatre. This ad appeared in The Vidette-Messenger on April 3, 1971.

MARCH 2021 REVIEW: "CATCH-22"

Official PoCo Muse Film Critic Jeff Schultz revisits Catch-22 for his March 2021 Review.

Americans in 1970 no longer need to go to the movies to see images of soldiers marching through combat zones with someone like John Wayne leading the way. All they had to do was turn on their TV sets. The Vietnam War was dramatically different from any war in United States History largely due to being the first military conflict where TVs were prevalent. Unlike World War II when morale reached its zenith, Americans were more diverse in their opinion of war seeing its horrors inside their living rooms. With the rise of the anti-war movement came the anti-war genre for movies.

“Catch-22” was an example of this new type and played at the Premier Theater in Valparaiso in March 1971. It’s based on satirist Joseph Heller’s 1961 novel and maybe best known today for its cast which includes a long list of guest stars. Oh look, it’s Jon Voight! Look, it’s Art Garfunkel! Look, it’s Anthony Perkins! Look, it’s Martin Sheen! Look, it’s Bob Newhart! Look, it’s Orson Welles! There are more cameos here than a Muppet movie. The film’s protagonist, Capt. John Yossarian, is played by established comic actor Alan Arkin. Having seen too many of his fellow soldiers perish in flight combat missions during WWII, he learns he can get out of the war if he is declared insane by the squadron physician. However, he has to ask the physician to declare him insane, but doing so would indicate he is sane and require him to keep flying missions. That’s Catch-22.

Heller’s novel was considered prime real estate in Hollywood with many prominent filmmakers attempting to rise to the challenge of bringing this surreal, unconventional vision of war to the big screen. Welles, who was considered by some to be the greatest director of his time, showed enthusiasm for helming the production but ended up playing in front of the camera instead as General Dreedle. Other directors considered included Stanley Kubrick and Richard Lester. After their success with “The Graduate” in the late 1960s, the production moved ahead with screenwriter Buck Henry and director Mike Nichols. It reportedly took Henry two years to adapt the novel and by the end differed in many ways, although Heller is said to approve of Henry’s changes.

Trying to describe the plot further is a futile task. It’s difficult to know at any time of the movie if we are in a dream, flashback or reality. That’s the point though, to drive the narrative that war is illogical. I’m not sure what effect people watching the movie at the Premier in 1971 had they not read the novel other than confusion. They’d probably get that it is a farce but it’s often hard for the viewer to know if they’re supposed to laugh. I think the most they would be amused by is Bob Newhart’s scene when the colonel leading the outfit appoints him as the new squadron commander simply because his name is Major, despite he is only the schlemiel who collects the laundry. This then makes him Maj. Major Major.

Evidence to say that “Catch-22” proved too subversive for audiences is reflected in its paler box office performance against another war comedy from that same year, “M*A*S*H.” An instant success, “M*A*S*H” skewed the Vietnam War just as much as “Catch-22” but moviegoers liked it better because its characters came off as real and the situations and antics were relatable, famously spawning an enormously popular TV series. It and other war films “Patton” and “Tora! Tora! Tora!” scored a wealth of nominations at that year’s Academy Awards while “Catch-22” struck out receiving none and was largely forgotten.

Today, “Catch-22” is a minor classic due to the lasting popularity of the novel and has gained more appreciation from critics. I found much in it to admire, particularly Henry’s dialogue packed with his trademark wit and wonderful cinematography by David Watkins. The visuals of the of the B-25 Mitchells taking off are masterfully filmed and the sound of the engines is thrilling to hear if you’re watching with speakers or headphones. I enjoyed everything I saw and heard in the movie but none of the technical elements add much to the narrative which remains flat and non-cohesive. It’s a movie worth seeing but it’s unsatisfactory in adapting the novel, a Catch-22 of its own. I give the film 2 out of 4 stars.

Half a century later, the story has been adapted again, this time by George Clooney and company as a mini-series is available now on Hulu. Spread over six-episodes, it’s a more tactful way to capture Heller’s complex structure and I recommend for fans to give it a look.

FEBRUARY 2021 REVIEW: "JOE"

Official PoCo Muse Film Critic Jeff Schultz revisits Joe for his February 2021 Review.

My guess is you don’t know “Joe” which played at the Premier Theater in Valparaiso in early February 1971. It’s not as widely seen as other movies of its time like “Fiddler on the Roof” or “Dirty Harry”, but “Joe” did significant business at the box office with critical buzz around Peter Boyle’s appealing performance. It’s Boyle’s first leading role and opened his career to other opportunities like playing the creature in Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein.”

Playing opposite of Boyle in “Joe” is Dennis Patrick, a regular guest star on a raft of TV shows and, in her movie debut, actress Susan Sarandon. The director, John Avildsen, would score an Oscar win six years later with another hit you’re sure to know, “Rocky.” Unlike “Rocky” and Avildsen’s other directing work with the “Karate Kid” series, “Joe” is noted in the Premier’s ad as being “very adult.” That might sound to you like it’s the kind of film shown late at night on a premium cable channel, but it’s not as lascivious as that.

Audiences at the time were still getting used to new freedoms filmmakers had of presenting content geared toward mature audiences with the new rating system (G, PG, R, and X) implemented by the Motion Picture Association of America in 1968. As the old studio system crumbled throughout the 1960s, movies grew up. There had always been films underground that featured violence or sex, but it finally became part of the mainstream after films like “Bonnie and Clyde” were released in 1967. It’s very likely that three years earlier you couldn’t see a movie like “Joe” in theaters and what’s still shocking to see today is the graphic depiction of drug use when we are introduced Sarandon’s character Melissa and her dope fiend boyfriend.

About twenty minutes later, we meet Joe. He’s the loud drunk sitting at the bar who spouts rants with unchecked facts about minorities, people on welfare, and those darn hippies who are “screwin’ up the country.” He doesn’t give a hoot about what you think about what he thinks, much less for political correctness. His current diatribe is so laced with bigotry that he makes Archie Bunker look like Mr. Rogers in comparison. Meanwhile, a man in a suit stumbles in and hearing Joe, he unwittingly states in a daze that he’s just killed a hippie who hooked his daughter on drugs. Joe is so pleased to hear it, he buys the guy a drink.

Later hearing on the news that police are searching for a suspect involved in the killing, Joe realizes he has his new friend Bill on a string and calls him up at his high-rise office to blackmail him most implicitly by saying they should hang out together. The worlds of blue-collar and white-collar collide as the two men get together for dinner with their wives. While the women talk about their home décor, Joe shows off his gun collection. Learning her father has killed her boyfriend, Melissa runs away and Joe goes with Bill to trail her to a psychedelic party, the kind Joe has so often railed against. “This is one of them ‘or-gees,’ isn’t it?” Joe asks Bill in his thick, working class accent.

Released during the Nixon-era, “Joe” proved to be palpable satire, although its aim isn’t as obvious as other satirical films at the time like “M*A*S*H” and “Catch-22.” Those were anti-war but it’s not clear what brand “Joe” is. It arguably had some agenda by the fact its screenwriter Norman Wexler was arrested by the FBI in 1972 for making threats against Nixon. The most poignant aspects of satire are Joe’s contrast to the other characters and how they interact with him despite a gap in social class. He’s the fish out of water who is gasping for a beer.

Although the Premier’s ad hails “Joe” as a “4 star” comedy triumph, I would grade it down to 2½ out of 4.

I’ve dished out my share of spoiling details about the plot so I won’t give away the ending but it didn’t have enough resolve to make the film satisfying for me, not as much as Boyle’s excellent performance anyways. Boyle didn’t win the Oscar as the Premier ad wages, that went went to George C. Scott in “Patton,” but the movie did receive a nomination for Wexler’s screenplay. Perhaps why Boyle seems so good in this is because the character would fit in naturally with the politics of today. I doubt though he’d identify with the Joe in the White House.

Joe is available for on-demand viewing at no cost through Tubi TV. We have no affiliation with Tubi, but it’s neat you can watch it for free from home.

JANUARY 2021 REVIEW: “SCROOGE”

Official PoCo Muse Film Critic Jeff Schultz revisits Scrooge for his January 2021 Review.

When it comes to choosing which version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol to watch, there is no shortage of options. You’ll find dozens listed on YouTube or rent your personal favorite whether it’s with the Muppets, Bugs Bunny, Jim Carrey or Bill Murray.

Rarely a year goes by now without a new movie or TV show that is in some form based on Dickens’ classic tale, adding to an already plethora of choices for audiences eager to get into the holiday spirit. This was not the same luxury 50 years ago however when the Premier Theatre in downtown Valparaiso showed the 1970 version of “Scrooge” in its original theatrical run. Adults then may have remembered seeing the 1938 MGM version with actor Reginald Owen in the role of Ebenezer Scrooge, or perhaps one of the British film adaptations starring Sir Seymour Hicks or Alastair Sim. Kids may have remembered the story best from a cartoon like “Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol” which played on TV in the 1960s.

Despite its popularity, A Christmas Carol never really got the so-called “Hollywood treatment” prior to 1970. Previous film versions were made rather inexpensively and shot in black and white. Not only was the 1970 version the first musical adaptation, it was the first to have been made in color and on a grand scale, so those watching it in movie theaters like the Premier probably found it to be rather special experience compared to today.

Playing the title role of Scrooge is Albert Finney. Watching the movie, you would think Finney to be a natural pick but the casting is a little more offbeat than you might think. Surprisingly, Finney was only in his early 30s when the movie was filmed, whereas Scrooge’s age is more than twice that. To achieve the look of an old miser, Finney underwent extensive makeup that would require three hours each day to apply. Audiences then probably remembered Finney best from his Oscar-nominated role as the mischievous lothario in “Tom Jones,” which won the Best Picture Oscar in 1964. What would have been more recent, he co-starred with Audrey Hepburn in a romantic hit from 1967 titled “Two For the Road.”

Other notable casting is the revered Sir Alec Guinness as the ghost of Scrooge’s former business partner Jacob Marley. It would be several years later when Guinness would play his most iconic role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars, but American audiences in 1970 would have known him best from three David Lean-directed epics – “The Bridge On the River Kwai,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” and “Doctor Zhivago.” Playing the Ghost of Christmas Past is Dame Edith Evans who also starred with Finney in “Tom Jones.” One of her famous movie roles was that of the Rev. Mother Emmanuel in 1959’s “The Nun’s Story.” Making his film debut in “Scrooge” as Tiny Tim is 8-year-old Richard Beaumont who has a song of his own titled “The Beautiful Day” in the movie.

The songs in “Scrooge”, as well as the movie’s script, were written by English composer and lyricist Leslie Bricusse. Bricusse previously wrote songs for James Bond movies, including the themes to “Goldfinger” and “You Only Live Twice,” and a wealth of popular songs from the 1960s and 1970s such as “Feeling Good” sung by Nina Simone and “The Candy Man” from the film “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” later made popular by Sammy Davis, Jr. Bricusse won an Oscar for Best Original Song in 1967’s “Doctor Dolittle” writing the lyrics to “Talk to the Animals.”

Musicals remained a popular and bankable genre for movie studios when “Scrooge” was released, making a comeback after being a box office draw throughout the 1930s. Some of those studio heads were still around and were reluctant to make new kinds of films reflecting the spirit of the counterculture movement. It’s likely that “Scrooge” was made as a result from the critical and financial success brought on by another musical adaption of a Charles Dickens novel, “Oliver!”

Given a lush budget and songs by Leslie Bricusse, “Scrooge” provides enjoyable screen entertainment. The film is rated G for families, but if you were watching in the Premier Theatre you may have seen a few parents take their young children out into lobby during the ghost scenes as some are potently frightening. There are more tender moments to counteract those. Many patrons were likely humming along with the film’s big musical finale, “Thank You Very Much,” unable to remove the earworm until next Christmas. While it may not maybe as masterful or beloved as other adaptions, “Scrooge” may have the most indelible ending shot with Scrooge returning home and affixing the infamous Marley door knocker with a Santa Claus hat and beard.

Going Back to the Movies gives “Scrooge” 3 out of 4 stars.

Scrooge is currently available for on-demand viewing at no cost through Tubi TV. We have no affiliation with Tubi, but it’s neat you can watch it for free from home.