TCM Showing Rod Serling's "Carol For Another Christmas!" Tonight (SUNDAY - First Time in 48 Years!)
I've wanted to see this since I was in college.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_for_Another_Christmas
Carol for Another Christmas, scripted by Rod Serling as a modernization of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol and a plea for global cooperation between nations, was telecast only once—December 28, 1964.[1] The only TV movie ever directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, this was the film in which Peter Sellers gave his first performance after suffering a near-fatal heart attack. Sellers portrayed a demigod in an apocalyptic Christmas. Sterling Hayden, who costarred with Sellers in Dr. Strangelove earlier that year, was also featured.
Film critic Bhob Stewart provided some background on the production:
Presented without commercial interruptions, this "United Nations Special" was sponsored by the Xerox Corporation, the first of a series of Xerox specials promoting the UN. Director Joseph Mankiewicz's first work for television, the 90-minute ABC drama was publicized as having an all-star cast (which meant that names of some supporting cast members were not officially released). In Rod Serling's update of Charles Dickens, industrial tycoon Daniel Grudge (Sterling Hayden) has never recovered from the loss of his 22-year-old son Marley (Peter Fonda, whose scenes were cut, I think), killed in action during Christmas Eve of 1944. The embittered Grudge has only scorn for any American involvement in international affairs. But then the Ghost of Christmas Past (Steve Lawrence) takes him back through time to a World War I troopship. Grudge also is visited by the Ghost of Christmas Present (Pat Hingle), and the Ghost of Christmas Future (Robert Shaw) gives him a tour across a desolate landscape where he sees the ruins of a once-great civilization. In the final weeks of post-production, Peter Fonda's scenes were deleted, but his image remained in the film, recognizable in a portrait on the wall.[2]
Others in the cast were Percy Rodriguez, Eva Marie Saint, Ben Gazzara, Barbara Ann Teer, James Shigeta and Britt Ekland. Henry Mancini wrote the theme music, which was recorded for his 1966 holiday LP, A Merry Mancini Christmas.
The film is not commercially available, but it can be seen at the Paley Center for Media in New York and Los Angeles and the Film and Television Archive at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Turner Classic Movies has recently announced that it will telecast Carol for Another Christmas for the first time in forty-eight years, on December 16 and 22, 2012. [p]
TCM ARTICLE:
http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/963811/Carol-for-Another-Christmas-A/articles.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
THANK YOU, Hissyspit!!
Much appreciated!
To be fair, a LOT of them were pretty awful, but many of them had a particularly "leftist" feel to them, and during the time when many of them would have naturally started to appear on tv, we were overrun with right wingers starting to really control things.
There are always gazillions of movies from the 30's & 40's but there is an empty space until the 80's... curious 
You have to really search to find many movies (that are not westerns or bible fantasies) from those decades.
A truly great one "The 25th Hour" even had its name stolen by a recent movie, and the original is rarely ever shown and cannot be found easily even in online databases.. why?? It's pointedly anti-war... It's one of Anthony Quinn's best work.
Thanks for posting Hissyspit!
BHN 
