Carol for Another Christmas (1964) - full transcript

♪ I wrote my mother

♪ I wrote my father

♪ and now I'm writing you, too

♪ I'm sure of mother

♪ I'm sure of father

♪ and now I wanna be sure

♪ very, very sure of you

♪ don't sit

♪ under the apple tree

♪ with anyone else but me

♪ anyone else but me



♪ anyone else but me

♪ no, no, no

♪ don't sit

♪ under the apple tree

♪ with anyone else but me

♪ till I come marching home

♪ don't go walking

♪ down lovers' lane

♪ with anyone else but me

♪ anyone else but me

♪ anyone else but me

♪ no, no, no

♪ don't go walking
down lovers' lane

♪ with anyone else but me



♪ till I come marching home

♪ I just got word

♪ from a girl who heard

♪ from the girl

♪ next door to me

♪ a boy she met just loves...

♪ Till I come marching home

♪ till I come marching ho...

Good evening, uncle Dan.

Fred.

I wonder if we could talk for a moment.

Well, I was planning

to get to bed early tonight.

This won't take long.

Coffee?

I'll have Charles bring another cup.

No, thanks.

Well, now, nephew,
which one of your many causes

brings you out
into the snowy night, huh?

Some ubangis

with the yaws?

Some perverted mass murderer
who's seen the light

and wishes to assume
his rightful place in society?

As an alternative

to the electric chair.

No, no, that was...

That was last year, wasn't it?

Was is it this time?

A movement to donate

the Mississippi River

to the Sahara Desert?

You can do better than that.

Not on a full stomach, I can't.

Not before coffee.

I'm here

about one of your causes.

What about Jack Harris?

Harris?

Jack Harris?

I, uh... I don't know

the fella.

Professor John Harris?

You know him.

Look, Fred, we usually
wind up our little discussions

yelling at each other.

Now, let's get a quiet start
this time, all right?

Jack just called me.

The university board of trustees
canceled his credentials

for the cultural exchange

program.

Ah, yes, yes,
that Harris.

Yes,
I I heard that decision.

It was your decision.

You just said
it was the trustees'.

I'm not even
on the board.

The words were theirs,
but the voice belonged

to a high powered ventriloquist
named Daniel Grudge.

You sit here at that desk,

throw your voice through
a telephone, everybody jumps...

Bankers, politicians,

newspapers, universities.

This coffee is cold.

Now, why should
a little thing like this

sit so heavily
in your tender tummy, Fred?

"Little thing"?

Uncle Dan, you know
what this project has meant

to all of us on the faculty,

to the whole university.

Everything from the raising

of our own pedagogical standards

to international recognition
to...

We've worked on it
for an entire year.

It's been cleared by Washington,
cleared by the other end,

and now you come along
to dump it all.

Why?

Why should you object
if one of our professors

spends a year
studying and teaching abroad?

Yes, abroad.

Poland, wasn't it?

Your professor Harris

was to spend a year in Poland

at the university of Krakow,

was it not?

Stop asking me questions
you know the answers to.

Would you care

for a drink?

No, thanks.

And in exchange

for our professor Harris,

the university of Krakow
in Poland

would send to our university

one of their boys,

whose name,
even if I knew what it was,

is probably
unpronounceable.

Korzeniowski.

It's really
quite easily pronounced.

That's what's known these days

as a "cultural exchange."

You know, Fred, for a fairly
talented professor of history,

you seem to be
a little naive

as to the current political

climate of the native country

of this
professor whatever his name is.

Are you serious?

Stop asking me questions

you know the answers to, nephew.

Do you know
what he teaches?

Do you know what Korzeniowski
and Harris both teach?

18th century
European literature.

What's that got to do
with politics?

I don't know.

And I'm not interested

in finding out.

Get smart, boy.

We've been digging his kind
out of the woodwork for years.

You don't really expect me
to be a party

to inviting one of them

in here, now, do you?

Oh, no.

No, he stays
on his side of the fence,

and Harris stays on ours.

Get used to the idea.

When you finally go, that'll be
your epitaph, won't it?

"Here lies Daniel Grudge,

on his side of the fence."

Well, get used to this idea,

uncle.

There are certain fences

the world can no longer afford.

Quite a wall through Berlin,

I've heard tell.

Exactly. A fence.

And who put it there?
You think it's right?

All right, Fred.

Turn it off.

Right now.

There's only one side I'm on...

First, last, and always...

Our side.

Don't you ever
forget that.

And spread it around.

I want all the members

of your various domestic

and international orders
of the bleeding heart

to know precisely

where Daniel Grudge stands.

Because any time you

and/or one

of your fuzzy fellow do gooders

tries to get me,

or friends of mine,

or my city, state,

or my country, involved

in any
of your so called causes,

then I intend
to be there every time

with a body block
that'll throw all of you

flat

on your involved butts.

Now, get out.

Merry Christmas,
by the way.

Yeah, so it is.

And tonight,

especially tonight,

I'm in no mood

for the brotherhood of man.

Do you mind?

I've heard that speech.

And heard it.

Oh, I've had it with you,
Fred.

With all of you, I've had it,
right up to here.

Mind your own business.

And let everybody else

mind theirs.

Your responsibility

happens to be your classroom,

not classrooms in Krakow,
Poland; Butte, Montana;

or Johannesburg,

South Africa.

Do you insist

upon making it a better world?

Won't you die happy
until you do?

Do you insist upon

helping the needy and oppressed?

Is that some kind of an itch

that you can't stop scratching?

Then tell them
to help themselves.

Let them know

the cash drawer is closed

and make them believe it.

You'll be surprised how much
less needy and oppressed

the needy and oppressed

turn out to be.

But you've heard
that one before.

And heard it.

No, I can't change you,

and you can't change me.

So just stay

out of my way, Fred,

out of my house,

and out of my life.

Uncle Dan.

Uncle Dan,

this is Christmas Eve,

a very special night,

apart from everything else,

for you and for me.

All my life, we've disagreed

about most things, you and I,

but there's one thing

we both have in common,

someone we cared

the world about...

Your son...

My cousin, Marley.

May I have

that drink now?

The one solitary thing
on this earth

that I cared

anything at all for.

And to what end?

So that his life
could be snuffed out?

His fine young body turned into

a bundle of bleeding garbage,

in return for which,

I'm sent his dog tags,

some medals,
and a 12 word telegram?

Something for something.

I give them a son,

and they give me back

his effects.

That, I submit to you,

is a lousy bargain.

Nobody could argue that.

The point is

that kind of bargaining
has got to stop.

Oh.

And who's gonna stop it?

Armies of professional

plea coppers, like you?

Your kind mouth the platitudes

that get us into war.

His kind

go off to fight them.

You might
raise that point

with one
of your debating societies.

The point that,

every two decades,

we seem to pay for
your indiscriminate affections

with the lives
of our sons.

Those indiscriminate affections,
as you put it,

is simply the acknowledgement
that all men have sons,

that grief

for the unnecessary dead

is not exclusive
to this country, this town,

or to the house of Grudge.

Mine is exclusive.

It concerns me.

Forgive me, uncle Dan,

but I feel
you mourn the death of Marley

less than you mourn
your personal loss of him.

You keep his room

like a shrine.

You set a place for him
at dinner each Christmas Eve

because he died

on Christmas Eve.

Those things are for you,
not for him.

Who cares
who they're for?

I'm the one
who feels the pain.

And you'll go on feeling it,

nursing it even,

until you realize

the true tragedy,

the tragic insanity

of Marley's death.

Not that your son was killed

by another man's son,

but that mankind still allows

such dying to happen.

It wasn't his war.

No war is anybody's war!

I'm not talking
about anybody.

How do we stay out?

By getting ourselves involved
with the same people,

the same problems,
the same places?

None of them our business?

Is that your answer?
Involvement?

A hophead's pipe dream

in which everybody...

Yellow, black, and white...

Gets thrown into one pot,

and out comes a stew

called world brotherhood,

which mankind lives forever

in... in peace and putrefaction.

Is that your answer?

No, not even close.

But it's the way
you keep putting it.

Maybe
for some very private reason,

you have to keep telling it

to yourself that way.

At any rate, as you said,

I sure couldn't change you.

Thanks for the drink.

And I have a Christmas present
for you, Fred.

Call it a contribution,
if you like,

to all your causes,

involvements, exchanges,

cultural and otherwise,

whatever terms you apply

to international freeloading

on our pocketbook.

If you have
this overpowering concern

for everybody everywhere in
the world, here's your answer.

Just you put
your effort, sweat, and faith

into developing
the fastest bombers

and the most powerful missiles
on earth.

They'll provide a lot more
security for our young

and for the rest

of the world's young,

than all your debating

societies, forums, treaties,

pacts, and other forms
of surrender and handout.

That's quite an answer,

uncle Dan, for today.

But what about tomorrow?

Of course, you'll grant
all other nations an equal right

to put their faith

and sweat and effort

in trying
to make their bombs

faster and more powerful
than ours.

Just let them try it.

Each behind its own fence.

Each capable, eventually,

of destroying everything

and everybody else.

And each uninvolved

with the other.

Uninvolved with us?

I'll settle for that.

Just let them know we have
the biggest and the fastest.

Just let them know we're not
too chicken to use them.

Peace on earth,

goodwill to men.

To all men, by the way.

Marley?

Marley?

♪ Don't sit under the apple tree

♪ with anyone else but me

♪ anyone else but me

♪ anyone else but me

♪ no, no, no

♪ don't sit under the apple tree

♪ with anyone else but me

♪ till I come marching home

♪ don't go walking down...

Do you hear anything?

Sir?

I asked you,
did you hear anything?

Like what, sir?

♪ Anyone else but me

♪ no, no, no

are you all right,

sir?

♪ With anyone else but me

♪ till I come marching home

♪ I just got word

♪ from a girl who heard

♪ from the girl

♪ next door to me

♪ the boy she met

♪ just loves to pet

♪ and it fits you to a "t"

♪ so don't sit under the...

Hey, what do ya say,
chief?

You're Grudge, huh?

Daniel Grudge, right?

Where, uh...

What is this,

some kind of a troop transport?

Yeah,

you might call it that.

On its way.

From France?

One of our stops.

Well, where else?

You name it.

Meet the troops.

They're dead.

Killed in action.

Chateau Thierry,

belleau wood, the marne.

How you gonna keep them down
on the farm

after they've seen Paris?

They saw Paris...

Very briefly.

Lafayette...

They were there.

You talk like the a.E.F.

What's your name?

I'm all the a.E.F.S.

Also b.E.F.S,

the poilus,

the huns, the russkies,

et cetera.

Gallipoli, the crimea,

even Waterloo,

if you care
to go back that far.

You get the picture,
chief?

I'm all of them.

I'm the one who rallied
around the flag,

any flag, all flags.

See what I mean?

Yeah.

Yeah, no names

and all names, huh?

You know,

I haven't heard that one

since the radio programs
in the '30s.

Your name is

Joe, Tony, Izzy, pat...

All one and the same.

America the melting pot,
right?

Wrong.

I'm not getting across to you.

I can see that.

Who said only america,

sport?

I'm the dead,

all the dead.

We're quite a stew,

you'll have to admit.

Still, nameless as I am,

I've got a terrific title...

The ghost

of Christmas past.

How's that hit ya?

It doesn't.

No, I don't look

like a ghost, huh?

Do you want

to make your point?

It's damp out here,

and I'm uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable?

You, chief?

Why, I've been given to
understand you were an old salt.

That was 20 years ago

when I was in the Navy.

I'm afraid
you still don't comprenez vous.

Not 20 years ago.

20 years from now.

This is 1918. Capiche?

It was a long war

for some of these boys.

And short for some.

And a short life for ours.

Which ones were yours?

Can you pick them out?

We didn't belong

in that one, either.

"Made the world
safe for democracy," did they?

That's
what they were told.

They sure as hell

gave it a try.

Look, they change the hats,

they update the slogans,

but it's
the same old shell game.

Like clockwork.

Every 20 years, somebody rings

a fire bell 10,000 miles away,

and out comes uncle Sam's

expeditionary sucker brigade.

Is that what they are?

Suckers?

Is that
what your son's gonna be?

My so...

My son?

My son will be a victim,

just as these men
are our victims

of somebody else's war.

You kill me, chief.

You really do.

If it isn't valley forge
or the Boston tea party,

you leave it

strictly alone.

Your big gripe is what?

'Cause every 20 years,

American boys got
to climb on troop ships

and head out for someplace else?

It rubs you raw.

So what else is new?

60,000 limeys

die in flanders.

100,000 frogs

catch it at verdun.

The Germans march

through Belgium,

and Austria declares war

on Japan, but who cares?

It's a nice summer.

Boston's gonna win

the world series.

So we'll rock on the front porch

and swat flies.

Do I translate you right,

chief?

Better than American blood.

Infinitely better than American blood.

Amen, I grant you.

If it were possible.

But it ain't possible.

War is also

a contagious disease, Mr. G.

And until we can stamp it out
entir...

Nobody... nobody ever found
a way to do that.

Right.

But is that any reason
to stop trying?

One thing we do know...

The only chance to keep

this particular disease
from spreading

is to keep talking.

So long as you talk,

you don't fight.

Simple?

Look,
I bump a guy on a street.

He bumps me.

We stand there.
We argue.

He gives me lip.

I give him lip.

But when we stop talking,

we start swinging,

and then we bleed.

Then we got problems,

like... winding up dead.

I recognize the commercial,

but it's no sale.

Oh, I'm not selling ya,

pal.

I'm donating to you,
free of charge.

Remember the...

Excuse the expression...

League of nations, sport?

That was gonna be
the point there, remember?

I would have been opposed
to the league of nations.

Of course you would.

And you were,

so you blew it.

A bunch of fancy characters
with top hats and monocles.

"We're not buying any of that,
right, Mr. G? No sale."

We've had it
with foreigners.

We've had it with...

With "making the world
safe for democracy"

and the rest

of the slogans.

So we tell them to drift.

We're sitting
this one out.

That's how you keep wars

from happening, right, Grudge?

Don't get involved,

right?

Well, is it?

Tell them.

They'd like to know.

Wasn't that how you kept the
world from a second world war?

Uninvolvement,

stay isolated?

Wasn't that how?
Well, tell them!

Well, obviously,
if we hadn't become involved,

why, they wouldn't be here.

No, they... they

wouldn't be here.

They'd be back

in their hometowns.

What was left of them.

Buried,

right where they fell.

Another ship?

Also on her way.

I can
just make out the deck.

Those are American soldiers

from my war.

Nicely put, chief.

They're the sons.

These are the fathers.

Yeah, after 1918,

we got sick of war, fed up.

All those American kids

getting blown to pieces,

out of sight in foreign places

with strange sounding names.

So for the next 20 years,

we closed our eyes

and decided what we couldn't see

wouldn't happen, right?

'Course, we don't want
to take all the credit, do we?

I mean, we weren't

the only ones playing shut eye.

When old Adolf walked

into the rhineland,

France didn't want

to get involved.

Italy pulled down a window shade

when Hitler took Austria.

England wasn't about
to involve herself

when czechoslovakia
went under.

And Russia kept the phone
off the hook

while Poland was destroyed.

And before you knew it,

everybody was singing,

"don't rock the boat"

while it sank slowly

to the bottom.

So, they died

at other places on other dates.

Don't you tell me
you're not selling anything.

Now, you listen to me.

Nobody... nobody, mortal man

or dressed up ghost,

can convince me
that every time there's a war,

we have to step in
and finish it.

Now, you listen to this.

The next one... the next one,

we don't bring up the bucket.

We stay home.

We stay on our...

Our side of the fence.

Talk about
your old time radio shows.

Seems to me,

I heard that one before, too.

Hey, you want
to know something, pal?

That ocean you call a fence

keeps nothing out anymore...

Except fish.

It's a lousy stream
of water now.

It's about as wide

as a ditch.

A couple of supersonic bombers

can spit over it.

An icbm
will leave it behind.

You don't want
to get involved.

Sport, you got

a job ahead of you.

You really got a job.

You got to disinvent
the airplane and the missile

and the submarine and a litte

old thing called the bomb.

It.

See what I mean?

You don't want
to get involved,

you got to give back
the 20th century,

if you can
find a chump to take it.

But isolation?

I got news.

That went out with gas light
and 50 cent steaks.

It's for the dinosaurs,

isolation.

And closing your eyes...
That's for sleeping.

Also at certain times,

it... it leads to dying.

Convoy.

Hundreds of ships,

thousands of ships.

Loaded with boxes,

chief.

China, Ethiopia,

Spain, Latvia, Hungary.

Undeclared wars,

police actions.

Some minor league

insurrections.

All the way back, chief.

All the way back
as far as anyone can remember...

And still farther.

But it all boils down

to somebody stopped talking...

So they fought...

So they bled...

So they died.

Hey, wouldn't you think,
sport...

With all the brains
we got on this earth,

the way we build things

and cure things,

and invent stuff on Tuesday that

wasn't possible on Monday...

Wouldn't you think
we could come up with something

that could keep a kid from

getting killed at the age of 18?

Ghost?

Sir?

Where do they go?

The ships, I mean.

Where do they go?

Nowheres.

Like I said,

just on their way.

Why, Mr. Grudge?

You... you want

to throw a wreath or something?

We've reached
your port, Mr. Grudge.

This is

where we get off.

In here.

What's in there?

A place

you should remember.

A place...

A foreign place

you had a feeling about
one time.

I doubt it.

Do you, chief?

Well, maybe you
just don't remember too good.

Not only where you've been,

even what you say, like,

"let them know we're not

too chicken to use that bomb."

They already know that,

Mr. Grudge.

Do you remember any better,
Grudge?

Hiroshima, right?

Hiroshima.

I was here

in September 1945.

I was off my ship.

I came here.

Of course, this is
only your memory of it.

It wasn't quite as clean

as you remember.

Well,

they did quite a job.

They cleared away all the dead

real quick.

They only left

the... silence.

You recognize the officer,
chief?

[ Girl singing in Japanese

why, it's me.

It's me 20 years ago.

It's me when I came here

that afternoon.

The daffy tricks

memory plays.

Some things we think

we forgot... we only misplaced.

Would you like

to get out here, sir?

Good morning.

Do you speak English?

Yes, commander, I do.

Grudge is my name.

My cruise is in Yokohama.

This is
lieutenant Gibson.

She's attached
to our headquarters there.

Tell me, doctor,

who has that lovely voice?

That is sachiko.

It means

"child of happiness."

Sachiko.

Doctor, was she...

She was one of the group
of schoolgirls.

They were clearing away

fire lanes when the bomb fell.

Would you care
to meet them?

They're very lonely here.

They enjoy company.

Thank you.

I must tell you that when

the plane flew overhead,

these children looked

up at the sky.

Their faces were upturned

to the blast.

They suffered

what we call flash burns.

It is a term
we use to describe

instantaneous

thermal radiation.

How badly
were they burned?

They have no more faces,
commander.

I told the young ladies that
you're American naval officers,

and you've come

to... to wish them well.

Uh, doctor, I I know
it's not much consolation,

but at least we can hope
that their children will...

Children, commander?

These girls?

Excuse me.

Lieutenant?

Sir.

Never seen

a burn case before?

Several times, sir.

I was at

the Bethesda naval hospital.

I was there after coral sea,

after midway, after samar.

I saw

a lot of burn cases.

And when you saw them,

did you run?

The burn cases I saw were

American sailors, commander.

They had been
fighting an enemy.

They weren't
schoolchildren.

The distinction

is most subtle, sir.

I'll give you that.

But, my god,

there is a difference.

What about the kids
at Pearl Harbor

who looked
up toward the sky?

Or malayan kids?

Or Chinese kids?

Sympathize all you want,
lieutenant,

but keep
your perspective.

The president
of the United States

found it necessary
to drop that bomb

because there would have been
500,000 American casualties

and a couple of million Japanese

dead had he not dropped it.

Harsh as it may sound,

in my book,
that makes simple arithmetic.

Commander, I wouldn't debate

military planning with you.

I'm just suggesting
that we are standing

in the middle

of what was once a city

where, on one given morning,

100,000 people were killed.

People, commander.

That's almost
as many deaths

as the confederates had

in four years of civil war.

Quite apart

from anything else, sir,

doesn't that suggest to you

that, from this second on,

if the world ever decided

to go to war again,

it could kill itself off

in a couple of afternoons?

Doesn't it suggest, sir,

that... maybe...

Maybe war is obsolete now?

Just... just do me one favor,

would you please, commander?

Don't call it arithmetic

anymore.

Fujiko?

Koshiko?

That's kou.

Koshiko and fujiko

were his sisters.

That's where they were
that morning.

Whenever there's thunder now,

they always remember.

Dear god.

Look, son,

you take it easy, huh?

Everything's gonna be

all right.

You understand me, huh?

It's just

a little thunder.

Come on.
Give me a smile.

Come on. Little more.

Attaboy.

Thank you.

"If thine enemy be hungry,

give him bread to eat.

If he be thirsty,

give him water to drink."

Your enemy thanks you,

commander.

It's starting to rain,

Mr. Grudge.

I remember the rain.

A yellow child is a black child

is a white child is a child.

Can we agree

to that much?

Where to now?

Through there,

Mr. Grudge.

Oh, I've been there.

This time,

it's... it's another place,

like every place

is another place.

Are you coming with me?

No, sir.

I'm then.

In there is now.

Grudge, isn't it?

Daniel Grudge!

Join me in a snack,
won't you?

Potluck, I'm afraid.

This table,

my chandelier.

You have
an eye for possessions.

Glad to see it.

Little Turkey, Mr. Grudge?

Drumstick, wing?

Baked ham, perhaps?

Candied yams,

suckling pig?

I find myself
overeating at Christmas.

Thanksgiving, too.

A tradition of overeating,
as it were.

You don't make sense
to me.

My apologies, Mr. Grudge.

I thought you knew.

I'm the ghost
of Christmas present.

Representing what,
gluttony?

If you like.

No, I I represent

the human race, Mr. Grudge.

So, to a certain extent,
does gluttony.

Also starvation...

I represent that, too.

You might say
that I'm as close

to being a walking, eating image

of the human race

as it's possible

for a man or a phantom to be.

Part of me

feels a gnawing hunger.

Part of me is satiated.

I'm warm,

contented, healthy,

but much of me
shivers in the cold.

Now I understand.

This is
where I get my lecture

about the haves
and the have nots.

Mankind includes extremes,
Mr. Grudge.

Extremes, yet some people

living alone in a 24 room house,

and 24 others living

in one room.

Some eating

high off the hog...

And some

simply not eating at all.

Not at all.

Displaced persons.

Today,
more than 20 years after...

Quite a few of them

still around.

The barbed wire set.

How can you eat like this

when you know that they're
right there, staring at you?

Why not?

Well,
it takes a special breed

to stuff himself
in front of starving...

You hit the point there,
old boy. You really did.

It takes a special breed,

indeed.

But you see, I don't happen
to be a breed, Mr. Grudge.

I'm a ghost.

I don't have a heart.

I don't have a soul.

No nerve endings,

no brain center.

I'm just a reflection.

But then,
I've already told you that.

Shall I now tell you how many

times you've stuffed yourself

while 2/3 of the world starved

in a cage?

Here.

Throw them a bone.

Don't you
talk to me like that.

I have feelings.

Nothing on this earth

could force me to eat

while starving people
watched me.

Watching makes
all the difference, what?

You never saw them while tearing

into your mashed potatoes.

They weren't actually there

when you buttered your bread.

There.

Better, Mr. Grudge?

Appetite back?

Do... sit down.

You're gonna have
to explain

the logic of man to me,

Mr. Grudge.

For example,

tell me how you come about

your selective morality,

this ease with which you strip

off your conscience

like an overcoat

and let your satisfied belch

drown out the hunger c