Scrooged (1988)

Mean-spirited television network president Frank Cross (Bill Murray) is a slick yuppie who cares only about money and ratings for his network, IBC – which, this year, is producing Christmas shows like The Night The Reindeer Died (starring Lee Majors) and Robert Goulet’s Cajun Christmas.

He has just sacked a member of staff – the unfortunate Eliot Loudermilk (Bobcat Goldthwait) – on Christmas Eve for disagreeing with him and has alienated himself from his brother who still insists on inviting Frank to Christmas dinner despite him refusing to go every year (Frank hates Christmas).

However, Frank is forced to learn the true meaning of Christmas when he’s visited by three ghosts in this holiday film which melded MTV sensibilities with the classic Charles Dickens novel, A Christmas Carol.

Alone in his office with a Stolichnaya and Diet Coke, Frank is visited by an apparition of Lew Hayward (a mummified, decaying John Forsythe), his (deceased) predecessor at IBC.

From this point on, he begins to see things that others don’t – which is bad news because network boss Preston Rhinelander (played with a touch of dementia by hard-boiled Robert Mitchum) has imported breezy, sleazy Californian Brice Cummings (John Glover) to assist the overworked network president.

The Ghost of Christmas Past (David Johansen as a cab driver with a terrible dental plan) takes Frank back to his abused TV-dominated childhood and through his meeting and budding love affair with the idealistic Claire (Karen Allen) before yielding to the ditsy gossamer-winged Ghost of Christmas Present (Carol Kane as a pushy accident-prone sugar plum fairy who enjoys inflicting pain). The big Ghostbusters-style effects arrive with the huge, monstrous Ghost of Christmas Future.

The modernising of the venerable classic is extremely well done, and the film shares a lot of its concerns with Dickens – including themes of homelessness, poverty, the struggles of being a single parent and the perils of becoming so engrossed in your career that you lose sight of everything else of importance.

Scrooged abounds in comic ideas, gags, and storylines and Murray is at the top of his game, delivering a big, brash, caustic – and finally, emotional – performance that only occasionally crosses over into bathos and bombast.

Frank Cross
Bill Murray
Claire Phillips
Karen Allen
Brice Cummings
John Glover
Eliot Loudermilk
Bobcat Goldthwait
Preston Rhinelander
Robert Mitchum
Lew Hayward
John Forsythe
Ghost of Christmas Past
David Johansen
Ghost of Christmas Present
Carol Kane
Ghost of Christmas Future
Robert Hammond
Calvin Cooley
Nicholas Phillips
Grace Cooley
Alfre Woodard
Herman
Michael J. Pollard
Gramma
Mabel King
James Cross
John Murray
Earl Cross
Brian Doyle-Murray
Doris Cross
Lisa Mende
Jacob Marley
Jamie Farr
Scrooge
Buddy Hackett
Robert Goulet 
Himself
John Houseman 
Himself
Lee Majors 
Himself
Mary Lou Retton
Herself
Santa Claus
Al ‘Red Dog’ Weber
Mrs Claus
Jean Speegle Howard
June Cleaver
June Chandler
Wally Cleaver
Michael Eidam
Ted
Mary Ellen Trainor
Wayne
Bruce Jarchow

Director
Richard Donner

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