Scrooged (1988)

My Review

Holiday hilarity prevails in “Scrooged,” producer-director Richard Donner’s updated version of “A Christmas Carol,” first published by Charles Dickens in 1843. Bill Murray plays an autocratic head of a television network who gets visits from the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future. We all know what will happen but the journey in this motion picture is fun escapist entertainment.

The cast is outstanding, especially Carol Kane as the ghost of Christmas past. She gave Murray the slapping around he deserves. Other actors are Karen Allen, John Glover, Alfre Woodward, Bobcat Goldthwait, Michael J. Pillard, David Johansen, Wendie Malick, Brian Doyle-Murray, Maria Riva, and veterans Robert Mitchum and John Forsythe. There are cameos by Mary Lou Retton, Jamie Farr, Pat McCormick, Paul Shaffer, David Sanborn, Lee Majors, Robert Goulet, Miles Davis, Buddy Hackett, and John Houseman as the narrator.

The very watchable “Scrooged” was a success at the box office for Mirage Productions and Paramount Pictures. It was film on the Paramount soundstages in Hollywood.