That was an excellent one.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

This movie presents the problems of the world and posits the UN as a possible solution. Hayden's character is a rich man who hates war. He beliefs in NOT fighting the world's battles.The other characters treat him in a contemptuous manner - as if most of the world starving is HIS fault. The blame him for enjoying life while others are starving.The basic idea is that as long as governments talk, they will not fight. In reality, wars are fought for gain. The only thing we can do is stay out of world affairs as much as we can and make sure that our enemies do not dare attack us. If a rich man gave away all his money, nothing would be accomplished. It is not the fault of an isolationist if people are starving. It is the fault of dictatorships.The heavy handed idiotic portrayal of the problems of the world must be seen to be believed.The only subtlety is in the ending where our protagonist decides to give the UN a chance. Would that the rest of the film was written as well.

Rod Serling Sterling Hayden, Ben Gazzara the UN has been super-effective Daniel Grudge--isolationist Marley, lost son pro-US interventions--but we should be a lot more selective most of these deaths WERE in vain keep talking--so long as you talk you don't fight.... was WWI intervention a good thing?"A Carol for Another Christmas" was apparently shown with no commercials on TV and was sponsored by the United Nations--so it was seen as a very important event. However, when you see it today, it comes off as silly, heavy-handed and incredibly naive. Rod Serling used Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" as a starting point for this film. Instead of Ebenezer Scrooge and stinginess, the plot is about Daniel Grudge (Sterling Hayden) and his hatred of US intervention in foreign problems. However, like in the Dickens story, various ghosts appear to show Grudge the error of his ways and in the end, Grudge is a huge proponent of the UN and US intervention abroad.In 1964, this apparently sat well with audiences. Today, however, it brings up a multitude of issues apart from the bad writing. The idea of the US acting like an international police force has become a hated concept with many nations and isn't very popular here, either. And, the UN has consistently proved that the organization is inept and unwilling to deal with evil. Now if you ignore the politics of the film, you are still left with a production that is about as subtle as a nudist at a Baptist picnic. Heavy-handed and silly--this is one that Serling biographers probably won't mention as it's a rare failure for this brilliant writer. Stupid and awful.

Thrilled to see the all-star "movie star" cast appearing in this piece, I watched this on TCM as part of their A Christmas Carol -a- thon. I didn't go into the movie expecting too much because I know it was made for TV and would be a very government film akin to Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" series. I sadly realized 4 minutes into the picture that this would be no better than the government message film "I Want You (1951)".I will not go into the how's and why's this made for TV "holiday" drama was made as it can be read in the synopsis and other reviews. I will not address the extreme pro-UN message it attempts to pound into the viewers heads. I will instead focus on the movie briefly from a technical viewpoint.Before I go into the flaws, I will point out that the movie has a couple sequences that are disturbing (in a good way), absurd and in the deepest darkness of a black comedy...namely the Sellers sequence. Sellers as Imperial Me pits narcissism against tolerant generosity in a Wells-ian fashion reminiscent of "The Trial" or the perverse nature of the Salem Witch Trials. The art-house theater sequences of the Ghost of Christmas Present show an attempt was made to make the movie thoughtfully. Unfortunately the demands of the script ruined it.Script: Too much talking. How can a script have too much talking? Normally dialog isn't an issue but it is when the actors don't know what to do with it. Statistics, factoids, history lessons, moral lessons, more statistics, more factoids, more lessons with more emphasis...repeat for 83 minutes.Acting: Sterling Hayden doesn't. He wore the same blah face as Dana Andrews throughout "I Want You" periodically tossing in a forced expression that looked more like constipation than any emotion I can pinpoint. I was looking forward to seeing Ben Gazzara, Eva Marie Saint and Peter Sellers (in his first return to screen post-heart attack role). I will always stop a moment to keep an eye out for a young James Shigeta and catch a glimpse of a handsome, hopefully sober Robert Shaw. All of these actors proved time and again in many roles that they are capable and believable in most of them. Yet in A Carol for Another Christmas, no one seems to do anything except recite lines in overtly Victorian style. Pat Hingle seemingly ignores Hayden and is the most convincing speaker in the movie but his government laden dribble slowly swallows even him. By the time he gets to the statistics of the hungry he looks crazed and Hayden honestly seems to not know the cameras are rolling because his eyes, presence, emoting of emotion, depth and dimension are all vacant. Sellers did do a great job, but he was an orator, not interacting with anyone except the audience. He did his best in his short time on screen. It became obvious scene after scene that the script was badly written and the actors were getting bogged down in it and with Hayden to react to, they were without hope. What's sad was that the director didn't do anything to amend the situation but rather continued to capture the tired disgrace of a movie.Lighting: Hard to believe someone would get this so wrong, but the interiors of the house are done with such hard lighting the stair railing casts shadows upstairs from *below* that make the upstairs walls look like a painted Arabian set. The Eva Marie Saint sequence is almost blown out, vastly over lit or possibly overexposed. With her super blonde hair, the DP should have dialed things down, but in what appears to be an attempt to compensate for the hats and scene look like the outdoors, the actors appear to be inside a nuclear reaction. The overall lighting schematic is one of excess or deficiency. The final sequence where Hayden goes to have breakfast with his black maid and butler, the faces of the latter two can barely be seen, and no distinction of expression is visible because they are not lit correctly. The interview with the Ghost of Christmas Present uses artistic lighting and reveals effectively, but it is lost in the bowels of this movie.Direction: Nowhere. No attempt seen to take the film past the superficial level. Since this isn't the first film w/ its history to turn out this way, it's becoming evident that believability was less important than rote facts being stated on screen.By the end of the movie, I wanted to take Peter Sellers' "Giant Economy Size" tin can gavel and knock some sense into it. If you enjoy forced government message films, (hey, some people do...i enjoyed some of the Why We Fight series) you should check it out. If you expect the actor immersion in the roles, you will be disappointed, though Sellers does manage a wicked glimmer in his eye. Perhaps it wasn't for the role but for the audience because he knew just how bad this movie would be.

If you've watched Twilight Zone and Night Gallery (and I've seen them all), you know that when Rod Serling had a point to make, he could be very heavy-handed, obvious, and preachy. This film, unfortunately, is like three of those episodes strung together.I grew up during the early 60s, and I remember the pro-UN propaganda we regularly received in grade school, going as far as asking us to collect coins for UNICEF while Trick-or-Treating. The UN was still fairly new then, and perhaps we were all more starry-eyed about what it could accomplish. The intervening decades have proved what a useless, crony-laden, corrupt, meddling outfit it truly is. So it's hard to watch this UN propaganda without cringing. (To be honest, the UN is not specifically mentioned, but its supposed missions are trumpeted throughout, and it WAS made as a plug.) So here, we get Sterling Hayden as the embodiment of everything lefties like Serling hated: militarism, isolationism (oddly enough), nuclear weapons,individualism, racism...fill in the blanks. There's even a little kid with a pretend gun, in case you didn't get the message about violence. The dialog is on par with Serling's other politically-motivated scripts, pretentiously poetic and deadly serious.The fact that I gave it any stars at all reflects the high quality of the production and the acting. The cast does all it can with the material, and the set decoration and lighting are top-notch. Even the print itself is pristine, sharp and clear as the old TZ shows. Henry Mancini wrote the score, although the lovely tune "Carol for Another Christmas," which appears on his Christmas album, doesn't seem to show up in the movie that shares its name. For Serling fans, this is something to sit through just to say you did it. For others, except the most wide-eyed, naive, hopey-changers who believe (as the script and our current president repeats often) that talking is the solution to everything, it's a dull, wordy Dickensian dud.