Female Friday

Female Friday continues on this third day of Christmas.

Ms. Scrooge, 1997 made for television, is the second attempt with some gender role reversal in A Christmas Carol, on the heels of 1995’s Ebbie.  I don’t actually own a personal copy.  When Ms. Scrooge was originally released on VHS after its initial broadcast, it never came down from its almost $90 retail price!  It still hasn’t been officially released on DVD in English, but can still be found on VHS (and strangely, still relatively very expensive for a VHS).  There is an imported DVD release in German! It used to be available to view on some subscription streaming services, but has since been dropped by them. 

This time we have the great Cicely Tyson in a could-be-better performance. Despite my personal opinion on Tyson’s performance and other deviations, this is my personal favorite with a female lead.  Though not original with its gender-changed Scrooge, it was one of the more racially diverse adaptations of any ACC at the time of its creation, after Jon Grin’s Christmas.  Ebenezer becomes Ebenita Scrooge, the miserly banker and owner of the loan company Marley and Scrooge in contemporary Providence, Rhode Island. What makes this female Scrooge different from the others is that she is at the traditional elderly age.  Other female lead adaptations– Ebbie, A Diva’s Christmas Carol, A Carol Christmas, All American Christmas Carol, and It’s Christmas, Carol – present a much younger feminine Scrooge. Most of Ms. Scrooge follows the familiar Dickens story though it deviates too much with some of the concepts of the Christmas ghosts.

The lackey, Cratchit, and two other over-worked, under-paid associates work for Ebenita Scrooge.  In this envisioning, Ebenita Scrooge was the protégé of the equally miserly Maude Marley (Katherine Helmond). Ebenita’s nephew, Reverend Luke, is a minister at a local church where the Cratchit family happen to be parishioners.  He is the son of her brother who was killed in Viet Nam.  Some of the demonstrations of Ms. Scrooge’s stinginess and love of her money are original, even bordering on comical without being farcical: her office safe is a “secret” room which she can solitarily sit to look at and admire her money; her home is filled with coin banks where she hordes found coins that the IRS can’t track; she irons her crumpled bills.  After the usual exposition of characters and how miserly and mean Ms. Scrooge is, we begin the usual ghostly journey.

This deviation of Marley’s ghost is too much.  When Maude Marley appears to Ebenita (in chains that look like she’s wearing too much bling), it’s not solely to help Ebenita escape the same fate.  Maude Marley says to Ebenita, “I actually need your help…to rest in peace!” … “Every year, on the anniversary of my death, I have to roam the world and see the happiness I can never share unless…unless you listen to me and turn your little life around.” Marley’s character little acknowledges the seriousness of her own past transgressions and is more concerned with escaping her current fate than helping Ebenita.  “Either get me out of this or join the crowd forever!” The concept of Marley winning redemption from eternal punishment would be used again it the later female version, A Diva’s Christmas Carol and has been used in other newer versions. Also, the traditional seven years since Marley has been dead is increased to ten years, going the opposite direction of Ebbie which decreased it.

The concept of the Ghost of Christmas Past as a man covered with cobwebs seems such an obvious vision that it’s surprising it hadn’t been done before Ms. Scrooge.  The past scenes are some of the best viewing in this adaptation. When we meet young Ebenita and see her story, she becomes a character I want to know more about.  The divergences from the original for the past sequences are ones that work well for this version.  Instead of an uncaring or cruel father, Ebenita comes from a loving father and family that struggles and tries to pick themselves up.  Her father dies in a fire trying to salvage materials from his arson attacked store and leaves the family in financial debts they cannot pay.  She loves her brother but they go onto different paths and he dies in Viet Nam a short time before he is eagerly expected home.  The motivations for the change in this Scrooge are very different, but they are believable and work for her character.  The struggling father and family would again be used in 2004’s A Christmas Carol: The Musical.

I dislike the Ghost of Christmas Present as much as I dislike Marley.  This ghost clarifies that he and the other phantoms aren’t really Christmas spirits at all.  Actually, he’s another suffering spirit seeking his own redemption by “being given this job: Spirit of Christmas Present.” Ghost: “I always strive for self-improvement; precious little else to do in that toasty place I share with Marley and all the other miserable souls.”

This is the first adaption of ACC I’ve known that gives (Tiny) Tim an actual malady (“slow growing congenital tumor”).

The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come is traditionally silent and played by Julian Richings. Richings’ look and type is well suited for the role; he had a recurring role as Death in the American television series Supernatural.  Two very unusual occurrences for ACC happen in the future scenes: first, Ebenita witnesses her own death and then her lonely, unattended funeral (instead of seeing the covered corpse and grave as is traditional), then she sees Tim Cratchit as he is dying (with Scrooge’s minister nephew in attendance).

The scenes of the reformed Ebenita are cute but uninspired.  We get a happy ending as Ebenita finishes her Christmas day revelries by attending services in her nephew’s church.  For female versions of Scrooge, this is the one to watch.  It’s frustrating that options and opportunities to see it are limited.