Carol for Another Christmas

A Christmas Carol enters the Twilight Zone in the United Nations propaganda film A Carol For Another Christmas. Written by Rod Serling, wealthy businessman Daniel Grudge, who’s become an isolationist following the death of his son in World War II, is visited by three spirits on Christmas who try to persuade him that isolationism is not the way. Charles Dickens’ Carol has been adapted in myriad ways, but this goes too far and isn’t really in the spirit of the story. Grudge isn’t cruel or uncaring toward is fellow man or the poor, he just has a different political outlook. It truly is some of Serling’s worst writing, coming off as subtle as a punch to the face. Yet the acting’s not that bad and the actors do their level best to make the martial work. And director Joseph L. Mankiewicz does a good job at setting an atmosphere tone, and at creating haunting imagery. An interesting failure (but a failure nonetheless), A Carol For Another Christmas was a bad idea from the start that’s made infinitely worse by its heavy handed preachiness.