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Christmas Scum Marathon – Day 7: Scrooged (1988)

For a review of Scrooged, I could just point you to the first ever Movie Scum Episode up to the 2:45 mark and that would about summarize my thoughts on the movie. Based on Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Bill Murray assumes the role of Scrooge as Frank Cross, a deplorably inhumane man who thrives on the mean-streak that everyone else would just as rather ignore. As the president of a major television network, he takes great joy in firing those who rub him wrong and being miserly when we assume that he has all the wealth in the world. Frank is warned of his depraved ways by his late boss (John Forsythe) who also informs him of the coming of three ghosts. The ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future all show Frank something he either wanted to forget or wanted to ignore in the hopes of turning him into less of a douchebag.

PBF said this was probably one of his favorite Murray movies ever (Bill, not the other brothers who turned up here) and I couldn’t agree more. This is classic, kind of goofy yet still serious Bill Murray like in Stripes or Ghostbusters. He plays Cross with a fervently intense hatred toward the world and humanity at large yet still in a comical way. Murray here, even in the early portion of the movie, steers his delivery in a way that hints at farce to take the edge off of the more harsher elements like the fired Eliot Milquetoast Laudermilk (Bobcat Goldthwait) or his suffering secretary’s (Alfre Woodard) family obligations that are trampled by Cross’ agenda. The balancing act this movie pulled off was making Cross insufferable but not to the point that he could not be adequately redeemed by the end of the movie.

To a point, you can almost understand Frank’s dilemma as he is career-driven but to a fault as that has not only cost him his relationship with his only brother James but also his true love Claire (Karen Allen). Murray and Allen have either a cute chemistry or a healthy hesitation with each other depending on the story’s needs in the past or present times. While a great deal of Murray’s shenanigans are more of the self-loathing kind of humor, he gets some great lines and overall scenes such as the over-the-top lunch with the executive ending with his slipping in the foyer. A large amount of the humor also is derived from the first two ghosts played by David Johansen and Carol Kane as the past and present apparitions respectively.

While the story is predictable, that is largely expected coming from a source material that has been adapted so many times over the years. Cross’ transformation from Scrooge to saint is a little uneven but that can pretty much be chalked up to the character’s stubbornness. The ending though sucked hard. Understandably, the film has a limited scope of what the final destination of the character arc is based on Dickens’ story but we did not need to see Cross interrupt the live TV production to ramble on about the goodness of Christmas and the human spirit. Show instead of tell is the old adage but director Richard Donner (wait, Richard Donner directed this?) takes what could have been more powerful scenes between Cross and Claire, James, or his secretary Grace and inflates them into Bill Murray grandstanding in a crowd of thousands in front of a television audience. In a way, I guess that suits the character of Cross as well but there was certainly something off about the last ten minutes of the movie (singing aside). I’m not sure if it was all ad-libbed by Murray or written by a bunch of hacks yoked in from the streets but it was unfunny and almost painful to watch. This was not a good way for such a great movie to end.

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