November 27, 2004|By Paul Brownfield | Paul Brownfield,LOS ANGELES TIMES
These days, the Ghost of Christmas Present is Chase Manhattan Bank, selling a credit card at the holidays. That's who called while I was watching A Christmas Carol, the latest incarnation of the Charles Dickens classic starring Kelsey Grammer as Ebenezer Scrooge and airing tomorrow night on NBC (WBAL, Channel 11).
The Chase guy on the phone didn't hit any of the themes of A Christmas Carol, didn't ask if I had enough love in my life, though in fairness I didn't keep him long. OK, I hung up on him.
A short time later, Grammer as Scrooge was being led by the Ghost of Christmas Past (Jane Krakowski, of Ally McBeal fame) to a courtroom in old-timey England, where Scrooge relives the traumatic childhood scene in which his father is sent to prison for nonpayment of debt. "Save your pennies, make your fortune and keep it," is the last thing Scrooge's father tells his son before being led away.
This admonition is supposed to haunt the young Scrooge into adulthood, making him mean and miserly and morally out of whack, but I found it to be solid financial advice. In fact, I wonder how A Christmas Carol might have changed had Dickens been writing it at a time when his phone was liable to ring with a guy offering him a $5,000 limit and 0 percent interest.
Perhaps this is for another discussion. In the meantime, rejoice! NBC and Hallmark Entertainment have brought back A Christmas Carol, in which crotchety, antisocial Ebenezer Scrooge goes to sleep on Christmas Eve and is visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future and awakes a changed man.
This is the musical version, based on the holiday production that opened 10 years ago at Madison Square Garden. I don't know, musicals on TV are tough. It's harder to get a sense of their bigness. Then, too, A Christmas Carol is a great, timeless story, and Alistair Sim in the 1951 film version left a deep impression.
All of which is to say that during the first 15 minutes of this one I kept thinking: less singing, more talking. Let Dickens come out, please. Then I gave myself to the production, to the songs and to Tiny Tim with his bum leg, and was eventually won over.
I gave myself over to the idea that this was Broadway on my TV, courtesy of composer Alan Menken (Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast), with lyrics by Lynn Ahrens (Ragtime) and the book by the late Mike Ockrent (Crazy for You).
The special effects helped too, and seeing actors such as Jason Alexander and Jennifer Love Hewitt in period costume gave the production an air of silliness that I found enjoyable if unintended. This Christmas Carol is directed by Arthur Allan Seidelman and executive produced by Robert Halmi, master of the lavish TV event (Noah's Ark, Gulliver's Travels) and his son, Robert Halmi Jr. The cast, in addition to Krakowski, Alexander and Love Hewitt, includes Law and Order's Jesse L. Martin as the Ghost of Christmas Present and Geraldine Chaplin as the Ghost of Christmas Future.
With the exception of Chaplin, the cast is what I would describe as "eh." But it's all about Grammer as Scrooge. A natural TV star, he carries the show with aplomb.
On Frasier, Grammer always projected a theatricality that was bigger than a sitcom, and he has no trouble with a role that has been variously played in the past by Albert Finney, Patrick Stewart and George C. Scott.
Here, Grammer moves from crotchety to benevolent in body language - he's tipped over and squinting to start, and eventually comes to straighten his posture and open his eyes. Grammer's natural charisma, even while he's being mean, helps you melt into the whole thing.
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A Christmas Carol
When: Tomorrow at 9 p.m.
Where: WBAL, Channel 11
In brief: Humbug.
