Seymour Hicks plays the old curmudgeon and Donald Calthrop is Bob Cratchit in the first talking version of Dickens's A Christmas Carol. Viewers who expect something deeply sentimental and technically creaky will not be disappointed and it should not really be compared to the classic Alastair Sim version of 1951. For its American release at Christmas in 1935, Variety was pleased to note that this "all-English production not only clicks in its portrayals but that they all speak understandable English".

Ebenezer Scrooge, the ultimate Victorian miser, hasn't a good word for Christmas, though his impoverished clerk Cratchit and nephew Fred are full of holiday spirit. In the night, Scrooge is visited by spirits of the past, present, and future.