5. Scrooged
Our number 7 film add added a host of Muppets to spice up Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol but 1988’s Scrooged only had to add one person to make it a Christmas classic: Bill Murray, performing a perfect 80’s, yuppie, TV executive, sleaze-ball: Frank Cross, a guy who despite being filthy rich, thinks nothing of sending his family towels for Christmas.
As is the routine, Frank is visited by the Three Ghosts of Christmas, although these are a little different from the traditional ghosts. The Ghost of Christmas Past takes the form of a hard smoking and driving taxi driver, with a time travelling Taxi while the Ghost of Christmas Present (a demented Carol Kane recently in Gotham as Oswald Cobblepot’s mother) appearing as a physically abusive fairy who transports Frank from place to place via concussion.
The key to this take on the Christmas classic is Murray’s laugh out loud performance, not only in his attempts to keep things under control while being messed with by the Ghosts as he prepares for for a televised musical version of A Christmas Carol, but also in the entertainingly evil way he behaves before he redeems himself.
Frank Cross is a man audiences love to hate.
Throw in Bobcat Goldthwait as a disgruntled fired employee, John Glover as Cross’ rival at the network, Karen Allen (Marion from Raiders of the Lost Ark) as Cross’s lost love Claire and sub-plots regarding his secretary’s kids, a home less man with no place to stay for the winter, a truly bizarre Richard Burton impression and a Rousing sing-along ending with Annie Lennox and Al Green and you have a film that is constantly surprising and fun.
