Six Degrees of Separation

MacGuffin Movies Round: link Her Serene Highness Princess Grace to the Clown Prince Charlie Chaplin.

Classic Becky began the festivities with a link from Chaplin to lovely Virginia Cherrill in City Lights and passed the baton this way.

Aha!

Virginia Cherrill appeared in the 1936 feature Troubled Waters with...

...none other than the man of the month, Alastair Sim.

Now, let's see ... who shall I ... Hey, Vincent (Carole & Company), remember back when you knocked on my door and I wasn't home to play the game? Well, tag!

PS: It should be an easy three links to Grace from Sim.

Caftan Woman's Choice - One for December on TCM

December is a month filled with endless movie delights, but if only one movie is watched during the month it must be 1951s A Christmas Carol. I hear you. "Really, Caftan Woman? You must know that we all watch A Christmas Carol and who doesn't love the 1951 feature?" True, but Christmas is a time of tradition, not originality. A Christmas Carol has been a Christmas Eve tradition since my girlhood some fifty-odd years ago and this gives me a chance to sing its praises. 

Alastair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge

It starts with the story and Charles Dickens was one of the best story men of all time. His novels delighted audiences in the 19th century and still do in the 21st. Mankind being what we are, we haven't changed that much. The story of Ebenezer Scrooge shown the path to make his and others' lives better by the spirits of the past, present and future is a lesson in faith, hope, charity, redemption and grace that speaks to our core.

Brian Desmond Hurst produced and directed the "potboiler" in the summer of 1951 to cash into the Christmas market, challenging the idea that you have to spend two years in the desert to make a masterpiece. The Irish born Hurst was a veteran of WWI who studied film under John Ford in Hollywood before returning to Europe to create his well-regarded films. Hurst's A Christmas Carol is presented with a sense of authenticity in setting and characterization that sets it apart and above the countless other versions of the story.

Noel Langley adapted the screenplay. His 40-year career on both sides of the Atlantic includes Maytime, Edward, My Son and Shirley Temple's Storybook on television. Some of the changes and nice touches he brought to the story include making Ebenezer the younger brother of Fan and having his mother die in childbirth which makes a symmetrical connection to the story of nephew Fred. Langley added to the business relationship between Scrooge and Marley. Instead of Ebenezer seeing his lost love enjoying the family life he might have shared, Scrooge saw his former fiance a single woman assisting the poor. When Scrooge asks the Ghost of Christmas Present if the people are real or shadows, the spirit responds "We are the shadows. Did you not cut yourself off from your fellow beings when you lost the love of that gentle creature?" I can't help think that Dickens himself would nod and smile at that line.

Michael Hordern as Jacob Marley's ghost
Alastair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge

The crowning jewel is the casting of Alastair Sim as Scrooge. Sim had been stealing scenes and delighting film and stage audiences for years. They couldn't get enough of his plummy voice, pop eyes and the unique way he had of insinuating himself into a character yet at the same time letting us in on the joy in his work. Michael Hordern (not yet Sir) is truly eerie and heartbreaking as Jacob Marley. Hordern would also play Scrooge in a 1977 TV version of the story. Sim and Hordern would reprise their Scrooge and Marley roles in Richard Williams' stunning 1971 animated version of the story.

One of the most memorable characters is Mrs. Dilber. In the story that is the name used for the laundress, however Langley gave it to the charlady and Kathleen Harrison ran with the role. Ms. Harrison had as long a career as a life, and she lived to be 103, with one of her last television roles in another Dickens adaption when Our Mutual Friend appeared as part of Masterpiece Theatre.

Mervyn Johns is my favourite Bob Cratchit. He plays a sweet, but not cloying soul who is servile to a mean master only because he must. Hermione Baddeley is a perfect match as the loyal Mrs. Cratchit, and it tickles me to think that in over a decade she would be cavorting with Johns daughter Glynis in Sister Suffragette when Mary Poppins hits the screen. Ernest Thesiger (Bride of Frankenstein) is droll as the undertaker and Miles Malleson (The Thief of Bagdad) unforgettable as Old Joe the junk man. The entire film is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to Britain's fine character actors. As Old Joe says in the movie, "We're all suitable to our calling."

Glyn Dearman, Alastair Sim, Francis De Wolff
John Charlesworth, Mervyn Johns, Hermione Baddeley
Assorted Cratchits champing at the bit for Christmas to begin.

The music for the film is from Richard Addinsell whose popular Warsaw Concerto is from another Hurst film, Dangerous Moonlight. The booming introduction to the movie never fails to produce goosebumps, and the imaginative use of familiar Christmas tunes and of the folk song Barbara Allen as a theme for Fan still brings a tear to my eye. In the Dickens story, he mentions only a "familiar air" in relation to Scrooge's sister and the sweetly melancholy Barbara Allen is a perfect choice.

In his story Dickens mentions Sir Roger de Coverley, a traditional Christmas dance tune and it is featured prominently at Fezziwig's party. Our local classical radio station in Toronto has the tune as part of its' Christmas playlist. I never can hear those fiddles start-up without hearing Alastair Sim, with excitement in his voice, say "Look, there's Old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig - top couple."

We return to the inimitable Mr. Sim whose transformation from "a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner" to "as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as the good old city knew" is total and touching and real. It is all that is all we can ask for, and more, from any performance of Scrooge and any adaption of A Christmas Carol. 

If your 24th is already booked and hasn't room for this personal and Canadian tradition, TCM is screening 1951s A Christmas Carol for the first time on the network on Monday, December 12th at 8:00 pm.

Favourite movies: The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950)

The writing/producing/directing team of Gilliat and Launder, and their 40 some films, are probably responsible for the image most of us have of British humour. Humour in the face of adversity and absurdity - that stiff upper lip resourcefulness and ready wit to which we would all like to claim ownership. It's an amazing partnership beginning with the screenplay for The Lady Vanishes through to Oh, Mr. Porter! for Will Hay, the Inspector Hornleigh series, Geordie, Green for Danger, The Smallest Show on Earth, The Belles of St. Trinians plus sequels, and more. If laughter is indeed the best medicine then Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder were the world's pharmacists.

Frank Launder collaborated with John Dighton, screenwriter of The Man in the White Suit and Went the Day Well? in bringing his 1948 stage hit, starring Margaret Rutherford, The Happiest Days of Your Life to the screen.

Margaret Rutherford, Joyce Grenfell, Alastair Sim

Mythology tells us that the happiest days of your life are your school days and while that may be true for some, the staff of a boy's school in rural England, Nutbourne College, exemplified by teacher Mr. Briggs played by Richard Wattis, does not agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment. In fact, Briggs keeps up a sarcastic running commentary about everything that occurs at benighted Nutbourne. "Benighted", you ask? Well, the college is a bit seedy, as is its Games Master played by Guy Middleton. The Headmaster, one Wetherby Pond played by Alastair Sim, is hoping soon to see the last of dear old Nutbourne. Much to the amazement of his fellows, Pond has been short-listed for the position of Headmaster at Harlingham. "That's a good school!"

The first day of the school year presents a problem in the form of an unaccountable number of bags from the railway station and a letter from the Ministry of Education, Department of Resettlement. A further 100 students, plus staff have been foisted upon dear old Nutbourne. Rising to the occasion, Pond decides this will be the perfect opportunity to show Harlingham what he is made of. The domestic staff of Nutbourne has no such lofty goal and walk out en masse, leaving the teachers to sort out such problems as where to place the incoming boys and what to feed them.

While the teachers are thus engaged, the interlopers arrive. The staff of St. Swithin's all-girls school is just as put out with the high-handedness of post-war bureaucracy, but Headmistress Miss Whitchurch played by Margaret Rutherford is a take-charge person and take charge she does. Her staff includes Joyce Grenfell as gawky gym teacher Miss Gossage ("Call me sausage.") and the sometimes reliable Miss Jezzard played by Muriel Aked. They become increasingly disheartened as they tour their new facilities, ending in the staff room. "Gaming, nicotine, fisticuffs - we're moving in a descending spiral of inequity. Whatever else this establishment may or may not be, it's clearly not a suitable place to bring carefully nurtured young girls to."

Miss Whitchurch's misgivings are felt just as keenly when the horror of having a girls school billeted in Nutbourne is brought home to Mr. Pond. "It means that not only has the Ministry made a mistake in sending a school here at all, but they have apparently been guilty of an appalling sexual aberration."

The Displaced and the Distracting

Repeated calls - urgent calls - to the Ministry are of no assistance whatsoever so staff and students make do in what Miss Whitchurch calls a "rough and ready harmony". All of the harmony falling to the side of that formidable lady.

At his wits end, Pond responds when being urged to vote in an upcoming election for a Miss Wilson that: "If there is a male candidate - whether he be conservative, socialist, communist or anarchist - or, for that matter, liberal, he will have my vote."

Margaret Rutherford, Alastair Sim

Second Tuesday of the term arrives. The day some of the girl's parents have been invited for tea and a tour of St. Swithin's new facility. The day Miss Whitchurch forgot and the day Miss Jezzard forgot to remind her of. This is the day the Board of Governors of Harlingham decide would be opportune for an unscheduled visit to Nutbourne to check out their new Headmaster candidate. Miss Whitchurch cannot afford to lose any students and Mr. Pond cannot afford to lose his career opportunity. Thus, the entire staff and student body are roused to great feats of hilarious deception to keep up the pretence of being either a girl's or boy's school depending on which group turns which corner.

The Happiest Days of Your Life is perfectly executed and perfectly delightful, capped off by the magnificent Margaret and the sublime Sim. It is the ultimate battle of the sexes and a timeless comedy classic.