Miserly Ebenezer Scrooge (played by Seymour Hicks and looking particularly decrepit) is given a tour of his cold, grasping Christmases - past, present and future - by the restless shade of his deceased partner Jacob Marley. Similar to the 1901 Robert Paul version, the iconic three ghosts are replaced by Marley (a deviation from the original popularised in J. C. Buckstone's 1901 theatrical retelling). Typical of the era, special effects are simple double exposures but that doesn't detract from the 'dreaminess' of the story and Hicks, who frequently played the humbugging skin-flint is quite good (he also stared in a 'talkie version' in 1932). The film opens with a brief introduction to the provenance of the original story and (unlike the earlier silent versions) there are extensive intertitles featuring lines of dialogue that will be familiar to anyone who has read the book or seen the 'talkie' versions. The version I recently watched on You-tube would have benefitted from a musical score.
Review of Old Scrooge
