Bill Murray Confronted Roger Ebert Over Bad Review For ‘Scrooged’

While Bill Murray’s Scrooged has become required holiday viewing, it wasn’t universally beloved upon its release in 1988. Noted film critic Roger Ebert, for one, wasn’t a fan. 

“Scrooged is one of the most disquieting, unsettling films to come along in quite some time,” Ebert wrote in his scathing one-star review. “It was obviously intended as a comedy, but there is little comic about it, and indeed, the movie’s overriding emotions seem to be pain and anger. This entire production seems to be in dire need of visits from the ghosts of Christmas.” (Ebert’s pal Gene Siskel was more generous, doling out three stars and praising the comedy for “lots of laughs.”)

Bad reviews are part of the business, but that doesn’t mean Murray couldn’t question them. Two years later, Murray was scheduled for a sit-down with Ebert to discuss his directorial debut, Quick Change, according to Far Out. 

Ebert wrote about their initial interaction. Murray popped into a bathroom to get camera-ready, only to stick his lather-smeared face out of the door to ask a pointed question: “How do you plan to explain your one-star review of Scrooged?”

“I was hoping it wouldn’t come up,” Ebert said.

Murray put up a half-hearted defense. “It wasn’t that bad,” he said. “It had some good stuff in it. Watch it on video, and you’ll see.”

Ebert shrugged. “It just didn’t work for me.” 

Murray wondered if Ebert had maybe gotten wind of disagreeable behavior on set. Between Murray, writer Michael O’Donoghue and unpredictable Carol Kane — “It was her idea just to hit me as opposed to pulling the punches," Murray said — making Scrooged was a miserable experience for most everyone involved. 

But Ebert didn’t have any inside information. He just believed it was an angry movie. Did Murray have a lot of arguments with the director, Richard Donner?

“Only a few,” Murray confided. “Every single minute of the day. That could have been a really, really great movie. The script was so good. There’s maybe one take in the final cut movie that is mine. We made it so fast; it was like doing a movie live. He kept telling me to do things louder, louder, louder. I think he was deaf.” 

So when Murray asked Ebert to explain the thumbs down? He wasn’t actually disagreeing with Ebert’s assessment of Scrooged. He just wanted to know what the critic saw in the movie that turned him off so completely. While Murray didn’t think the comedy was a disaster, he knew Ebert wasn’t wrong in picking up the bad vibes.

“On Scrooged, I was trapped on a dusty, smelly, and smokey set in Hollywood for three-and-a-half months, having a lousy time by myself and just coughing up blood from this fake snow that was falling all the time,” Murray told Starlog.

Murray could take consolation in one thing. As much as Ebert hated the Christmas movie, he did think Scrooged was funnier than Ghostbusters II.