Although it spends its running time preaching an anti-war, global- unity message, Serling's 60s-contemporary Christmas Carol variation has its heart in the right place, even if many might consider the pulpit sermon and bong sounding a bit wearisome. This cast is top to bottom with incredible talent, which might explain how important the United Nations Special meant to those involved.
Sterling Hayden as the heart-hardened military powerhouse, Daniel Drudge, a lonely, bitter man who lost a son to WWII and is against his nephew's (Cassavetes' vet, Ben Gazzara) UN peace efforts; Steve Lawrence as Ghost of Christmas Past, a phantom representing all the soldiers, from every nation, taking Drudge to the battlefield; Eva Marie Saint as a Naval officer in the past who accompanied Drudge to a particular bombed area of Japan where they encounter a tent housing burned-face children for which anguished her; passionate Pat Hingle as Ghost of Christmas Present, at a dinner table covered in food and the finest trimmings, reveals barbwire fences and captives singing carols, certainly confronting Drudge about the plentiful times he's enjoyed the finer things while many others starve; Robert Shaw as Ghost of Christmas Future, in robe and speaking with righteous indignation, presenting an America wrought in rubble and madness; a masterful Peter Sellers as a rabble-rousing, messianic madman instigating a remnant of human deviants out of the Holocaust of the future to embrace selfish doctrine and hold close to Imperial Me instead of unifying to salvage what is left of mankind; Percy Rodrigues as both Drudge's butler/manservant and a rational, peace-minded man of conscience trying to appeal to Sellers' followers in a future fallen to ruin; pre- stardom Britt Ekland as a knitting Imperial Me follower.
This one doesn't have Hayden returning from his visits in time with the phantoms a spiritually rejuvenated man ready to make the world a bright and shiny place. Serling instead realistically ends it with Hayden and Gazzara agreeing that they need to help do something that makes a difference in the world they live. Not extravagant or extraordinary but just something instead of nothing. The Serling-ian dialogue is cerebral, thought-provoking, confrontational, long- winded, and heavily political. It asks not only Hayden but us how we will help make a difference. Nothing much has changed since 1964, which many might say this film is as relevant today as ever before. But it uses Christmas Carol as a platform for change and might be a nuisance to those not quite beholden to the message it wishes for us to accept and be influenced into action by. If anything this film just wants us to listen.
Sterling Hayden as the heart-hardened military powerhouse, Daniel Drudge, a lonely, bitter man who lost a son to WWII and is against his nephew's (Cassavetes' vet, Ben Gazzara) UN peace efforts; Steve Lawrence as Ghost of Christmas Past, a phantom representing all the soldiers, from every nation, taking Drudge to the battlefield; Eva Marie Saint as a Naval officer in the past who accompanied Drudge to a particular bombed area of Japan where they encounter a tent housing burned-face children for which anguished her; passionate Pat Hingle as Ghost of Christmas Present, at a dinner table covered in food and the finest trimmings, reveals barbwire fences and captives singing carols, certainly confronting Drudge about the plentiful times he's enjoyed the finer things while many others starve; Robert Shaw as Ghost of Christmas Future, in robe and speaking with righteous indignation, presenting an America wrought in rubble and madness; a masterful Peter Sellers as a rabble-rousing, messianic madman instigating a remnant of human deviants out of the Holocaust of the future to embrace selfish doctrine and hold close to Imperial Me instead of unifying to salvage what is left of mankind; Percy Rodrigues as both Drudge's butler/manservant and a rational, peace-minded man of conscience trying to appeal to Sellers' followers in a future fallen to ruin; pre- stardom Britt Ekland as a knitting Imperial Me follower.
This one doesn't have Hayden returning from his visits in time with the phantoms a spiritually rejuvenated man ready to make the world a bright and shiny place. Serling instead realistically ends it with Hayden and Gazzara agreeing that they need to help do something that makes a difference in the world they live. Not extravagant or extraordinary but just something instead of nothing. The Serling-ian dialogue is cerebral, thought-provoking, confrontational, long- winded, and heavily political. It asks not only Hayden but us how we will help make a difference. Nothing much has changed since 1964, which many might say this film is as relevant today as ever before. But it uses Christmas Carol as a platform for change and might be a nuisance to those not quite beholden to the message it wishes for us to accept and be influenced into action by. If anything this film just wants us to listen.