The Return of ‘Bill Murray Sunday’
Monday is about movies, sometimes TV. Today, a Christmas movie I do like…
A couple of weeks ago I had a rant about Love Actually. An actual piece of shit masquerading as a Rom-Com, alleging all the while to be some sort of Christmas film, although that was largely just to coin a few extra bucks no doubt.
I like a few Christmas movies. I enjoyed Bad Santa 20 years ago, I still think It’s A Wonderful Life, from nearly 80 years ago, is the classic. Every year I plan to rewatch it, in much the same way as I like to think I’m going to sit up and listen to Handel’s Messiah — but it never seems to happen. Look, in a weak moment, I might even say The Holiday is okay. I don’t go out of my way to find and watch Christmas films, but after my rant against Love Actually the last thing I want is some sort of Bah Humbug levelled at me.
Many years ago, we started something in the student flat called ‘Bill Murray Sunday’. It was probably just after his star-turn in Rushmore, which seemed to remind the world of his genius, and just before things got silly with the over-appreciation following Lost In Translation. In the 90s there were all these great Bill Murray performances that had somehow gone AWOL — 1991’s What About Bob?, 1993’s Mad Dog and Glory, 1994’s Ed Wood, 1997’s The Man Who Knew Too Little, and 1998’s Wild Things (as well as Rushmore). There was double-duty in ‘96 too with Space Jam and Kingpin.
Murray was a legend for his 80s work — Ghostbusters most obviously, and before that a stint on SNL, and the screwball comedies Meatballs, Stripes, and Caddyshack. The big profile films following Ghostbusters were obviously its sequel (from 1989) and the 1993 classic, Groundhog Day — one of my favourite movies ever.
‘Bill Murray Sunday’ wasn’t a particularly clever title, its aim was to play a Bill Murray Double Feature every Sunday in December, revisiting some of the classics, and some of the lesser known fare — all building, inevitably, to the Bill Murray Christmas Movie: Scrooged
From 1988, Murray’s first movie in four years, Scrooged was his return to cinema after feeling overexposed and burnt out by the monumental success of Ghostbusters. It’s an odd black comedy, a satirical Christmas caper, retelling the Dickens novella, A Christmas Carol, with more cameos than you can shake a candy cane at. Miles Davis is a street musician (with David Sanborn and Larry Carlton and Paul Schaffer). David Johansen (lead singer of The New York Dolls) plays the Ghost of Christmas Past. You’ve got Bobcat Goldthwait, Carol Kane, Jamie Farr (Clinger from M*A*S*H) and Robert Mitchum. That’s just the icing on the (Christmas) cake. You’ve got the song Put A Little Love In Your Heart by Annie Lennox and Al Green — not even a Christmas song, but it is now! You’ve got so many things happening in this film, it’s tone a mess, but Murray’s performance just magic. He was such a perfect, ugly villain. And his redemption is an actual transformation.
The film was co-written by Michael O'Donoghue, the original Saturday Night Live head writer. And Richard Donner, director of The Omen, Superman, Lethal Weapon, The Goonies, and Ladyhawke, was at the helm. It was a weird set of power-dynamics, Murray might have earned his ‘difficult to work with’ badge on the set of this film; a reputation he held onto for some time.
It was an odd film to love as a 12 year old, but I did. It’s an odd film to love now. And I still do.
‘Bill Murray Sunday’ was all about a general appreciation of Bill Murray’s comedic gifts, but it had the payoff of a Christmas movie right at the end of the month. Scrooged, alongside the likes of Trading Places, and Gremlins, and Babes in Toyland, is one of the weird and wonderful 80s Christmas movies.
Last night, I decided to revisit Scrooged for the first time in years. It was here that I recognised Johansen — and all of Bill Murray’s brothers in cameo roles. Brian Doyle Murray was often in the early screwball films (and has plenty of co-writing credits too), but here all four Murrays are on screen at various times. I spotted a bunch of the cameos I’d never noticed, within seconds of the intro I could tell it was a Danny Elfman score — it could be no one else! — and the final speech by Murray, unhinged and so clearly improvised, was fantastic to watch this time around. So obviously a case of Bill just snubbing the script and going completely off-book. You can even see it in the way the actors gathered around him are reacting.
Scrooged is still still bonkers, still quite brilliant, and still the best pay-off to ‘Bill Murray Sunday’; though this year I think I’ll do it in reverse order, and start picking off the non-Christmas Murray movies from here.
Anyway, I just wanted it on the record that it’s really only Love Actually that I absolutely hate when it comes to Christmas films. And Scrooged shows the evolution of The Bill Murray Character between Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day so perfectly (with What About Bob? being the other missing piece).
