(2012, 91 min)
Country: United States
Director: Richard Knight Jr., Peter Neville
Studio: Dark Star Pictures
Language: English
SYNOPSIS: Scrooge and Marley is a modern day, queer variation on Charles Dickens' classic story of the holidays, A Christmas Carol. On Christmas Eve, Ben Scrooge, the man who hates the holidays, is given the chance to begin again when he is visited by three spirits - the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. Revisiting the tragic missteps of his life enables Scrooge to rediscover the joy of the holiday season and make a journey back to love.
Recounted from a gay sensibility with heart, comedy and music, the magic of Dickens' timeless tale comes alive from a fresh perspective that will appeal to audiences of all persuasions.
The filming occurred in Chicago in May 2012. Man's Country bathhouse was used to portray the disco club.
REVIEW:
“Scrooge & Marley” opens on a bleak Christmas Eve in Screws, a gay Chicago nightclub owned and operated by Ebenezer Scrooge, a mean-spirited skinflint who seems to take pleasure in firing people. As played by David Pevsner, he lurks in his office and doesn’t join the warmth and cheer around the piano bar. He’s the club’s gloom and doom department, a contrast to the crowd singing Christmas carols.
Because the origins of the story are well-known, it comes as no surprise that he is about to be encountered by three ghosts from Christmases past, present and future, most notably past, all of whom wear a sufficiency of lipstick, and by onetime business partner Marley, played in horror film makeup and style by Tim Kazurinsky, a Second City veteran who brings a macabre zeal to the role.
This sets up a framework for flashbacks, including a fraught visit to Scrooge’s homophobic parents. His dad sets the period by reading Holiday magazine, an example of the film’s resourcefulness with limited sets but not, let it be said, costumes.
One of the flashbacks features stand-up comic, Oscarcast joke writer and former local legend Bruce Vilanch, as the proprietor of Fezziwig’s, a gay club that represents the kind of establishment Screws should have been, if Scrooge had learned anything.
Other local talent include Rusty Schwimmer, as Freda, a friendly, big-spirited gay woman, and Megan Cavanagh, Ronnie Kroell and Jojo Baby as the ghosts of Christmases past, present and future. Scrooge has a special reason to resent Freda, his niece, whose mother died in childbirth.
There was much talk about this film over the past year at local critics’ screenings, because Richard Knight Jr., film critic of the Windy City Times, took a leave of absence to co-direct it with Peter Neville. They deliver more or less exactly what you’d expect, given the material.
The actors mostly have a lot of professional experience, and while “Scrooge & Marley” doesn’t represent a high-water mark for any of them, it has a good heart, high spirits and of course redemption for Ebenezer Scrooge, who by arriving at a better self-understanding is able to permit himself at last to be kinder and more loving.
“No one cares about money the way you do,” Scrooge’s lover, Bill (Christopher Allen), tells him when they split up, “and you certainly don’t care about me the way you care about money!” That there is a certain amount of overacting and waving about of hands goes with the territory in scenes like this; psychological realism is not the goal.
Reviewed by Roger Ebert [https://www.rogerebert.com/]
