Carol Kane Struggled Over Her Ballet Dancing For Scrooged
In the 1988 Christmas comedy "Scrooged," Bill Murray plays Frank Cross, a mean-spirited TV executive who oversees a live televised adaptation of Charles Dickens' 1983 novella "A Christmas Carol." The irony is that "Scrooged" is based off Dickens' story and Cross is a modern version of the misanthropic Ebenezer Scrooge. Echoing the original work, before the show, Cross is visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future who each show him the error of his ways. Carol Kane plays the Ghost of Christmas Present, who visits Frank as a fairy and does an awkward, off balance ballerina dance. And as the kids today say, the struggle was real.
Kane, who had never done ballet, said in a 2018 interview with Vulture that she trained for weeks with an instructor for the scene. Even though she knew a professional ballerina had been hired to come in as her stunt double, she still wanted to produce a presentable performance of her own. "And I kind of got to the point with my ballet teacher where I was proud of myself and thought I did the dance okay, like they could use parts of what I did," she said. Finally, Kane danced in front of the movie's art director, the late J. Michael Riva. She explained how it went:
"But this dance number: my whole heart was in it, and I was trying as best I could. But when I started doing it, Michael started laughing hysterically. Believe me when I tell you, on my heart, I just wanted the dance to be beautiful. But Michael just couldn't stop laughing because while I was trying so hard, I was also bad at it [laughs]."
It turned out that her performance was so bad, it was great.
Sometimes the truth is painful ... or brilliant
"Sometimes the truth is painful." That is was The Ghost of Christmas of Present tells Frank after she dances, kicks him in the ding dong, slaps him across the face, and yanks his bottom lip. She then shows him the painful truth of how his scrooge-like behavior has negatively impacted everyone around him. J Michael Riva's assessment of Carol Kane's dance could have been a painful truth for the "Hester Street" actress, but his response was anything but hurtful. Kane explained to Vulture:
"Michael, God bless him, went to Dick Donner [the late director], God bless him, and said, 'I think we should just use it the way it is and not have a double, and not have it be pretty. Just show her character trying, because her character can't do this dance.' So that's what happened, and that's what's in the film. I think Michael and Dick were so courageous and creative to do the dance scene the way we did. My dance was such a mess, but it was the best I could do, and it was the best the character could do."
Riva's idea not only served Kane, who yearned to have at least a bit of her performance in the movie, but it also served the entire film well. I'm not sure if the ballet scene was originally written to be comical, but I would guess that it wasn't since a professional ballerina was hired to do the dance. Letting Kane carry the performance solo provided us with natural, authentic comedy — and for the crew, unintentional comedy, which is always my favorite kind. Considering that "Scrooged" is one of those rare somber holiday movies, Kane's clumsy ballet dance helped brighten the mood just a little.