"Lost" PETER SELLERS/MANKIEWICZ/SERLING : TCM 12/22/2012

[JFK]

Not exactly lost, but soon to air yet again- as a TCM rerun- for the third time in 48 years....
Those who caught the 12/16 airing caught Serling scripting at its worst.

http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/963811/C ... ristmas-A/
December 16 Sunday 8:00 PM Eastern Time
A Carol for Another Christmas (1964) BW-84 mins
Three ghosts teach an industrialist the importance of international peacekeeping.
Dir: Joseph L. Mankiewicz Cast: Robert Shaw , Sterling Hayden , Peter Sellers ....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_for_ ... _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. 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.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057916/fullcredits#cast
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Charles Dickens (uncredited) Rod Serling
Cast (in credits order)
Sterling Hayden Daniel Grudge
Eva Marie Saint The Wave
Ben Gazzara Fred
Barbara Ann Teer Ruby (as Barbara Ainteer)
Steve Lawrence Ghost of Christmas Past
James Shigeta The Doctor
Pat Hingle Ghost of Christmas Present
Robert Shaw Ghost of Christmas Future
Peter Sellers Imperial Me
Britt Ekland The Mother
Percy Rodrigues Charles
Gordon Spencer Marley Grudge

[radiotelefonia]

Never lost... I had a DVD, dubbed, from tape recorded in Spain in the eighties.

It is a great remake of the film that Mankiewicz produced for MGM in the 1937.

I don't like the quote from Wikipedia, Sterling Hayden has the leading role in the film and he is terrific. Sellers and all of the other stars essentially play cameo roles.

[Salty Dog]

Interesting, I just happened to watch the intro/closing to both broadcasts of this program on TCM, they were around a week apart, one by Robert Osborne and the second by Ben Mankiewicz. I noticed that both of them in their closing comments made the same mistake, saying that Peter Sellers and Sterling Hayden appeared in Dr. Strangelove after doing this program together. Every other source says that the they were done in the opposite order. Also, since Strangelove was released in January 1964, and this program was broadcast in December of the same year, it seems most like that Strangelove was first.

It seems that they were pretty much reading the same comments without checking. I guess it's not too big a surprise, but you would hope that someone would check these things.

Anyway, the original program was pretty impressive.