Carface Remembers He Has a Heart in An All Dogs Christmas Carol

I was browsing around Netflix yesterday when I discovered that there was an All Dogs Go to Heaven Christmas movie – and that, even better, it was available to watch online. While I raised an eyebrow over the existence of this second sequel to the animated Don Bluth film about a rough-and-tumble dog with a heart of gold, I loved the original, so I figured it would be worth a shot. As I expected, An All Dogs Christmas Carol is a cute enough, if wholly unnecessary, adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic.

After the second (rather abysmal) All Dogs Go to Heaven movie, there was evidently a television series starring these characters, and I get the sense that this movie is in line with that series. It doesn’t seem to pick right up from where the movie left off; I tried not to remember too much about that shoddy sequel, but there seemed to be some continuity issues that maybe could have been ironed out through the TV series. I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt there. Still, this movie, at a scant hour and fifteen minutes in length, basically screams “quick moneymaker” to me. It’s nothing but a retelling of A Christmas Carol, and considering the fact that the original movie was a fairly powerful story of redemption itself, giving us another redemption story here that is such an obvious rip-off doesn’t feel nearly as compelling. I mean, you could take any number of shows or movies and make the resident grouchiest / meanest character into Scrooge and use side characters as the ghosts who help him or her recover the Christmas spirit. It’s been done over and over again. One of my all-time favorite television episodes, M*A*S*H’s Dear Sis, has an element of A Christmas Carol about it. But it isn’t just a straightforward rehash, which this is.

The villainous canine gangster Carface (Ernest Borgnine) is up to his old tricks. This time, he’s got a magical gizmo that hypnotizes any dog within hearing range, allowing him to make out like a bandit when they march up to him in a daze and give him all their stuff. He and his faithful assistant, Killer (Charles Nelson Reilly), have had it with these little gigs, though. They want to pull off something truly impressive, so Carface makes a deal with the devil, or at least a truly demonic canine named Belladonna (Bebe Neuwirth). If he holds up his end of the bargain, Christmas will be ruined forever. But Charlie (Steven Weber, the third actor to voice the character), his ladylove Sasha (Sheena Easton) and his best friend Itchy (Dom DeLuise) have a plan to stop Carface. With some help from another magical gizmo, this one provided by goody-two-shoes angel Annabelle (Neuwirth), they will take a page out of Dickens’ book and try to show Carface the error of his ways.

Charlie literally hits upon the idea of essentially reenacting A Christmas Carol, so the plot is derivative even within the world of the movie. And for as vile as Carface is – much worse, really, than Scrooge, who was cranky and cold but didn’t go around trying to kill people – it sure doesn’t take long for his heart to start melting. It happens a little too quickly. Then again, I got whiplash from him going back and forth between feeling really emotional over what he was seeing and closing himself off and flying into a violent rage.

I did rather like the first two segments, though. The Christmas Past part features the only decent song in the movie, in which he sadly remembers the little boy he loved who always made excuses for his bad behavior until, one fateful Christmas, he didn’t. Which, he realizes, is why he hates Christmas so much, not to mention why he would rather use others than get attached to them. In the Christmas Present section, I love the fact that Sasha guides Carface while dressed as Santa Lucia – especially since I happened to watch it on Santa Lucia Day. The Christmas Future part, usually so terrifying and desolate, is the weakest of the three, with an annoying centerpiece of Charlie singing a gospel-tinged song about how Carface has to mend his ways.

As with A Christmas Carol - as well as All Dogs Go to Heaven - it’s a youngster in trouble who is really the deciding factor in bringing about the change in heart. In this case, it’s a puppy with a bum leg who reminds Carface of his younger self. That element is sweet enough, though one wonders why Anne Marie, the little girl he abused in the first movie, didn’t have the same sort of effect on him. Additionally, it’s not enough for Carface to awake on Christmas morning wanting to be a better dog. No, he has to decide whether or not to participate in the nefarious plan that seemed so appealing to him hours before, and this aspect of the movie is pretty goofy, since he keeps changing his mind as to whether or not to throw the all-important switch that will hypnotize every dog in San Francisco.

A Christmas Carol is a powerful story, so even though this is nowhere near the best version I have seen, it’s still reasonably touching from time to time. And it’s certainly not the worst version out there. But this is one edition of A Christmas Carol I don’t expect to turn into a Christmas tradition.

Dickens Goes to the Dogs in Oliver and Company

When I was seven years old, the movie Oliver and Company hit the theaters. I immediately declared myself a big fan. I hung a large poster on the wall of my bedroom. I placed a finger puppet version of Oliver in the hot air balloon I had suspended over my bed so I saw him whenever I looked up. I bought the picture book adaptation from the Scholastic Book Club. But I never actually saw the movie. I'm not sure how that happened, as just about every other Disney movie that came out when I was a kid merited a trip to the theater, especially if it was animated. But I never got around to this one, and for some reason, I never rented it either. I finally got to see what I was missing this week when I rented it from Netflix.

Oliver and Company is an extremely loose adaptation of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist. Instead of 19th-century London, it takes place in 1980s New York City. Little orphan Oliver (Joey Lawrence) is an orange kitten who strikes out on his own after his siblings are plucked from a street-corner box. The Artful Dodger is just plain Dodger (Billy Joel), a super-cool mutt who, after a rocky introduction, takes Oliver under his wing. Fagin (Dom DeLuise) looks pretty rough around the edges, but this human leader of Dodger's ragtag canine gang has a heart of gold, which I expected as soon as I heard DeLuise's voice. I always felt sorry for Fagin despite his villainous traits, but this Fagin is much more victim than villain and even has a heroic moment late in the film. The true villain is Sykes (Robert Loggia), to whom Fagin must deliver a hefty chunk of cash - or else.

Oliver's benefactor in this movie is Jenny (Natalie Gregory), a rich, lonely girl whose parents are often away on business. She lives under the supervision of jovial butler Winston (William Glover) and shares a home with pampered show poodle Georgette (Bette Midler). When Jenny happens upon Oliver, she is ecstatic, and Oliver, though he enjoys the company of Dodger's posse - dopey Einstein (Richard Mulligan), feisty Tito (Cheech Marin), regal Francis (Roscoe Lee Browne) and maternal Rita (Sheryl Lee Ralph) - couldn't be happier to have the home he always wanted. So he's not too pleased when they "rescue" him just as he's settling in and even less tickled to find himself being used as a bargaining chip to get Fagin out of debt.

This is a fun movie full of peppy songs and funny zingers, mostly from Dodger and his fellow dogs. I was a little disappointed to discover that Billy Joel had not written the music; it was his name I most associated with the movie, and I thought his role in it was slightly larger. Still, he does get the big show-stopping musical number, Why Should I Worry?, which bears a certain resemblance to Aladdin's One Jump Ahead. (It also includes the line "I got street savoir-faire," which my mom mis-heard as "I got fleas in my hair." Which no doubt was true as well!)

The other big number is Once Upon a Time in New York City, the opening song performed by Huey Lewis that firmly establishes the setting. This movie never lets us forget where we are, whether we're gazing up at the Twin Towers or joining Jenny and Oliver for an idyllic carriage ride through Central Park. Jenny does get her own song too, the very sweet and quiet Good Company, while Georgette's braggy Perfect Isn't Easy is amusingly over-the-top.

Just before the conclusion, there's one very dark moment involving Sykes, and there are slightly racy undertones with the way Tito and Georgette interact with one another. For the most part, however, this is a very sanitized version of the Dickens classic. The backgrounds have a somewhat flat quality to them, but they still are effective in capturing the hustle and bustle of the Big Apple. I confess it didn't hold my attention quite as much as I thought it might; I would say it's not quite up there with Lady and the Tramp or 101 Dalmatians. But for a lover of Disney, Dickens or dogs, Oliver and Company is a worthwhile movie to watch.