By the time that adult film director Shaun Costello’s The Passions of Carol hit movie theater screens in 1975, Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol had already been adapted for the screen nearly 50 times across short films, features, and television episodes. But when Costello’s version hit in the mid ‘70s, Dickens’s iconic holiday tale had not yet been perverted; its adaptors hadn’t dared veer too heavily from the original story, or introduce an element of sexuality to its story and characters. The Passions of Carol saw fit to change that, taking the blueprint of Dickens’s text and molding it into a hardcore sensation that suited the porno chic movement of its time.
The most immediate detour of Costello’s adaptation, which he wrote as well as directed, isn’t its reliance on explicit sex, but, rather, that the character of Ebenezer Scrooge has been changed to Carol Scrooge (Mary Stuart, billed as Merrie Holiday). A clever nod to the title of Dickens’s source, Carol is a similarly curmudgeonly suit, here portrayed as the owner of a pornographic magazine. Costello offers a delightfully progressive twist on a canonically conservative story, not only in gender swapping the character of Scrooge, but in allowing her, in this case, to be a business owner, and one who is involved with sex at that. The conceit of the source is still there: Carol Scrooge is visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve that show her the past, present, and future. But Costello’s twist isn’t just one of gender, it’s also one of genre, as his film is largely a comedy.
The Passions of Carol is many things: a Christmas movie, a hardcore adult film, a fantasy, and, yes, a comedy. For those who mostly know Costello from his sicko mode, XXX exercises in depravity like Forced Entry (1973) and Water Power (1976), The Passions of Carol will appear surprisingly warm. It’s a holiday comedy that’s decidedly anti-capitalist and pro-fucking—something we could honestly use more of these days. That it works as well, and looks as good, as it does is a testament to Costello’s serious filmmaking. Despite being intentionally humorous, The Passions of Carol is not a parody. Costello is never making fun of Dickens’s text and, arguably, isn’t exploiting it either. Though perverse, his film is also a reminder of why Dicken’s story is so great in the first place.
Passions of Carol screens tonight, December 3, at Nitehawk Williamsburg as part of the series “Skin Deep.” Elizabeth Purchell will be in attendance to introduce the film.
