Scrooge is a 1935 British Christmas fantasy film directed by Henry Edwards and starring Seymour Hicks, Donald Calthrop and Robert Cochran. Hicks appears as Ebenezer Scrooge, the miser who hates Christmas. It was the first sound version of the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol, not counting a 1928 short subject that now appears to be lost. Hicks had previously played the role of Scrooge on the stage more than 2000 times beginning in 1901, and again in a 1913 British silent film version. This was the first film to be released by the Twickenham Film Distributors, Ltd., founded by Julius Hagen and Arthur Clavering. Hagen acted as producer for the new company, with Clavering handling film distribution. Stylistically it leans heavily towards German Expressionism and the films of Fritz Lang, involving dark shadows and darkened edges. The script sticks very closely to Dickens' words. There is a colorized version that omits the opening scene in which Scrooge is solicited for a charitable donation. Plot It is Christmas Eve of 1843: Ebenezer Scrooge (Sir Seymour Hicks), a cold-hearted and greedy elderly money-lender, is working in his freezing counting house along with his suffering, underpaid clerk Bob Cratchit (Donald Calthrop). Two businessmen (Charles Carson and Hubert Harben) arrive to collect a donation for the poor, but the old man responds that prisons and workhouses are sufficient resources to deal with poor people. Scrooge catches Bob trying to take some coal but warns him he will be out of a job if he does not go back to work. A visit from Fred (Robert Cochran), Scrooge's nephew and sole living relative, only incites further annoyance, with Scrooge refusing to dine with him and his wife, and claiming Christmas is 'Humbug!'. That night after work, Bob goes home to celebrate the holidays with his family while Scrooge dines alone at a seedy pub while the lords and ladies of London celebrate Christmas with the Lord Mayor of London. At home, Scrooge encounters the ghost of his seven-year dead partner Jacob Marley (Claude Rains – whose voice is only heard) who wears a chain he 'forged in life' from his own wicked career. He tells Scrooge he will be haunted by three spirits in order to escape his fate. That night, as Marley warned, Scrooge is haunted by the Ghost of Christmas Past (Marie Ney), who shows Scrooge when he lost his fiancée due