Although suffering from key storyline familiars (no mention of sister Fann or fiancé Belle, or even Fezziwig!) left out and the absence of ghosts that visit Scrooge not visualized (Marley isn't seen but heard, only an outline of Christmas Past and just a dark shadow silhouette of Christmas Yet to Come), the 1935 British adaptation of Scrooge does have some significance. Seymore Hicks can scowl and bark with the best of all Scrooges, and I felt when the film is cramped inside Ebenezer's counting house as poor assistant, Bob Cratchet (Donald Calthrop, who looks weathered, worn, and aged, appropriate considering the stress and working conditions he endures) tries to just warm the place with a few extra lumps of coal is grim, gloomy, and claustrophobic as it should be. The London of the film at the beginning is dark and sinister, with extra focus on how the wealthy and aristocratic are quite separate from the poor local folk always looking for a charitable soul or scraps from the master's table. And Scrooge, wealthy and yet quite ridiculously frugal, with no sympathy for those in need while himself living as if he had very little financially to his name. It seems like the entirety of London is beset by darkness until Scrooge's conversion is complete, awakening to the brightness and cheer of Christmas morning. No nick on the nose during shaving or falling snow dumped on him while hoping to pay for a prized turkey will sour Scrooge's mood after realizing that there is so much more to life than counting up the wages he collects from his struggling debtors. Hicks' jolly Scrooge at the end is often forgotten when you think of how marvelous Sim or Scott (later in the '84 version), or even Reginald Owen three years later, was in the same role but considering just how rude and ogre-like Seymore is at the beginning, the humbled and spry Ebenezer of the very end deserves mention just the same. This film does lack, no doubt, the richness and depth that often came from seeing the back story that shaped and molded Scrooge into the cantankerous moneylender that disregarded Cratchet, his nephew, and the two charity seekers. And the MGM production three years ahead would also undermine this version, along with bad reproductions often found in the public domain. But Hicks does give this version some needed clout despite its failures in comparison to other adaptations benefiting from better budgets and advanced developments not mentioned here.