This entry for Balladeer’s Blog’s Christmas Carol-A-Thon 2016 is a true oddity. It’s not so much a “love it or hate it” version of the Dickens classic so much as it’s a “like it or ridicule it” version, due entirely to the forced religious slant.
The Gospel According to Scrooge is a musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol – one which continues to be performed to this very day at various Christian venues around the country. This very first performance was televised in December of 1983 on the Trinity (as in Holy Trinity) Broadcasting Network.
I have a hard time forcing myself to be as rough on Christianity as I used to be, given the atrocities committed by Muslim fanatics on a daily basis and the way in which the world grovels for those same Muslims, all the while that same world pretends to be “daring” and “iconoclastic” by relentlessly bashing Christians and Jews. Uh. Yeah. Gutless hypocrites.
At any rate since I’m a non-believer in all the world’s religions I laugh my ass off whenever I watch The Gospel According to Scrooge, but committed Christians will probably like this Carol for all the same reasons that someone like me laughs at it. Continue reading
When our hero’s home hamlet of Jaspen, Arizona becomes a Boom Town after copper is discovered, the place turns into a proverbial web of sin and vale of tears. Michael Culligan (Louis Hayward), the greedy town boss, builds an empire for himself out of crime and greed as the copper rush continues. 
JEWISH GAUCHOS (1975) – It’s no secret that I love cinematic oddities. For this go-round I’ll examine the movie Jewish Gauchos based on the 1910 novel by Alberto Gerchunoff. The film deals with the musical adventures of a group of Jewish immigrants from Russia working as gauchos (Argentine cowboys) in Argentina in the very early 1900s.
Balladeer’s Blog continues its annual orgy of versions of the Dickens classic as Christmas Carol-A-Thon 2016 resumes! 
WAVELENGTH (1983) – Robert Carradine, Cherrie Currie and Keenan Wynn play a reclusive rock singer, his new girlfriend and his eccentric neighbor who get caught up in a government coverup about extraterrestrial life. 
SCORPION THUNDERBOLT (1983) – From Balladeer’s Blog’s old friend Godfrey Ho comes this horror film that has absolutely NOTHING to do with either scorpions OR thunderbolts. 
TALES OF THE THIRD DIMENSION (1984) was yet another of the six 3D movies released in the 1980s by Balladeer’s Blog’s old friend Earl Owensby. Earl was known as “The Dixie DeMille” since he and his film company operated almost exclusively out of North Carolina. To me he’s always seemed more like Roger Corman, however, since Owensby’s flicks were mostly just unpretentious B Movies made with so little money they were guaranteed to turn a profit. 
THE DEAD PIT (1989) – This horror film was the directorial debut of the very prolific director Brett Leonard. While not a four-star movie The Dead Pit is enjoyable enough for the Halloween Season and should certainly appeal to anyone into 1980s horror flicks. This movie’s hybrid of zombie elements and slasher elements is both its charm AND the reason behind its love-it-or-hate-it status. 
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