TF1 in France
Yes, regular readers know that the Friday after Thanksgiving every year kicks off this tradition! Balladeer’s Blog’s 7th annual Christmas Carol-A- Thon begins with one of the most visually enticing versions ever made. Unfortunately, it’s also virtually impossible to obtain for people who lack my nearly psychotic drive to track these things down.
TF1 Television in France first aired this version of A Christmas Carol, which could be described as a Carol for the arthouse crowd. Not a put-down OR a compliment, just an observation.
The performances are even more low-key than in the George C Scott version and the direction, by Pierre Boutron, is very inventive, bordering on a surrealist approach .The overall effect is like A Very Jean Cocteau Christmas or something.
As with the Spanish Leyenda de Navidad this French production keeps the story in 1843 London and stars Michel Bouquet as Scrooge and Pierre Olaf as Bob Cratchit.
This 90 minute version of the Carol is one of the tiny handful that depict Scrooge at Marley’s funeral, like the 1969 Australian cartoon version. Marley’s Ghost has the look of a bearded badass, but delivers his warning to Scrooge with a cold and calculating air that is almost more chilling than Continue reading
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. 
From 1979 to this calendar year the movies in this under-appreciated horror franchise forever changed the way we look at funeral homes. And funeral home directors. And Roman Numerals for that matter. For better or worse writer/director Don Coscarelli never sold out, never let the sinister Tall Man become an outer-space joke like Jason Voorhees or a Borscht-Belt Charles Manson like Freddy Krueger. (And it’s hard to believe the first Phantasm was rated X for violence in 1979.) 
Welcome back to Balladeer’s Blog’s month-long celebration of Halloween!
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