Scrooged
A cynically selfish TV executive gets haunted by three spirits bearing lessons on Christmas Eve.
- Director: Richard Donner
- Genre:Comedy / Drama / Fantasy
- Runtime:101 minutes
Cast
Bill Murray : Frank Cross
Karen Allen : Claire Phillips
John Forsythe : Lew Hayward
John Glover : Brice Cummings
Bobcat Goldthwait: Eliot Loudermilk
Francis “Frank” Xavier Cross (Bill Murray) is a conceited, cynical television programming executive. He has found great success and wealth but only by becoming cold-hearted and cruel. In the opening scenes, he is seen working out in a room with a border that reads “Cross: (n) A thing they nail people to.”
His ruthless concentration on his career has cost him his true love, the warm-hearted Claire Phillips (Karen Allen). It has also alienated him from his family, having only an “at arm’s length” relationship with his brother James (John Murray), and ruined any chance of his having a happy and fulfilling life. Frank overworks his assistant Grace Cooley (Alfre Woodard), forcing her to constantly break plans with her family and neglect her mute son Calvin. When a disturbing TV commercial is criticized by staff member Eliot Loudermilk (Bobcat Goldthwait), Frank responds by firing him on Christmas Eve.
When Cross is given the task of heading up a live Christmas Eve broadcast of A Christmas Carol, his life begins to mirror the story he’s producing. The decomposing corpse of his mentor, media mogul Lew Hayward (John Forsythe)—who had died of a heart attack during a golf game—comes back to visit to tell him the error of his ways, and to announce the impending visitation of three Ghosts.
The Ghost of Christmas Past (David Johansen) appears as a New York City cab driver and takes Frank back to his childhood in 1955, to his late teens in 1968 when he had his first job at the TV station, in 1969 for his anniversary with Claire, and 1971 the year in which he chose his job as “Frisbee the Dog” over Claire. The sequence shows how Frank gradually became the man he is in the present. Read more
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