Scrooge | |
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Directed by | Henry Edwards |
Screenplay by | H. Fowler Mear |
Based on | A Christmas Carol 1843 novella by Charles Dickens |
Produced by | Julius Hagen |
Starring | Sir Seymour Hicks Donald Calthrop Robert Cochran Mary Glynne Garry Marsh Oscar Asche Marie Ney C.V. France |
Cinematography | Sydney Blythe William Luff |
Edited by | Ralph Kemplen |
Music by | W.L. Trytel |
Distributed by | Twickenham Film Studios |
Release date |
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Running time | 78 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Scrooge is a 1935 British Christmas fantasy film directed by Henry Edwards and starring Seymour Hicks, Donald Calthrop and Robert Cochran. The film was released by Twickenham Film Studios and has since entered the public domain. It was the first sound film of feature length to adapt the Charles Dickens novella A Christmas Carol, and it was the second cinematic adaptation of the story to use sound, following a now-lost 1928 short subject adaptation of the story.[1][2] Hicks stars as Ebenezer Scrooge, the skinflint who hates Christmas and is visited by a succession of ghosts on Christmas Eve. Hicks had previously played the role of Scrooge on the stage regularly, starting in 1901, and in a 1913 British silent film version.
Critical reception to Scrooge has been generally positive over the years. Praise has focused on the film's atmosphere, which has been compared to works of German expressionism, and on the performance of Hicks in the title role. Some reviews have criticised the film for its technical limitations and for heavily abbreviating Scrooge's backstory.
The film was originally released in black-and-white. A restoration of the film was released on DVD by Image Entertainment in 2002, and a colourised version of the film was released by Legendary Films in 2018.