Strengths of this production include the opening out of events of the past into a linear narrative (George Cole plays young Scrooge for the early segments), and the playing of Mervyn Johns and Hermoine Baddeley as the Cratchits. Michael Hordern is a less successful Marley, certainly when he visits as a ghost, but the three Ghosts of Christmas are just as you imagine - Christmas Past is a wise old sage, Christmas Present is a jovial party-giver. Sim's reactions are priceless and he settles down well in the role. Brian Desmond Hurst directs a fine cast, headed by the incomparable Alastair Sim (a man who can play both malevolent and humorous) as the about-to-be-redeemed Ebenezer Scrooge. Many adaptations of Dickens' Christmas book have been and gone, but this is generally thought to be one of the definitive films of the story.
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