It stars Alastair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge, and was produced and directed by Brian Desmond Hurst, with a screenplay by Noel Langley.

It also features Michael Hordern, Kathleen Harrison, George Cole, Hermione Baddeley, Mervyn Johns, Clifford Mollison, Jack Warner, Ernest Thesiger and Patrick Macnee.

Peter Bull narrates portions of Charles Dickens's words at the beginning and end of the film, and appears on-screen as a businessman.

Initial reactions to the film were mixed, but subsequent reviews have been more positive, with general praise for the performances, particularly Sim's portrayal of Scrooge.

Scrooge witnesses the death of Fan after she gives birth to Fred, and discovers he missed her last words asking him to look after her son.

Jorkin's firm buys Fezziwig's business, and Alice breaks her engagement to Scrooge because of his dedication to "a golden idol".

He was corrupted by an avaricious new mentor, Mr. Jorkin (played by Jack Warner), a character created for the film, who lured him away from the benevolent Mr. Fezziwig and also introduced him to Jacob Marley.

The character of Scrooge's fiancée, named Belle in the book, and shown at the end of the Ghost of Christmas Past chapter to have become a happily-married mother of several children, is renamed Alice and is given an extra scene during the Ghost of Christmas Present sequence, where she is not married, and working at a shelter, tending to the needs of the poor.

The film rewrites the source material by explaining that Ebenezer's mother died giving birth to him, causing his father to resent him.

The Herald Angels Sing" is sung over part of the opening credits, and by the miners when Scrooge is with the Ghost of Christmas Present.

The tragic folk song "Barbara Allen" is played as an instrumental when young Scrooge is talking with his sister Fan, and sung by a duet at Fred's Christmas party.

[9] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times posted a favourable notice, writing that producer Brian Desmond Hurst "has not only hewed to the line of Dickens' classic fable of a spiritual regeneration on Christmas Eve, but he has got some arresting recreations of the story's familiar characters...The visions of Scrooge's life story are glimpses into depressing realms, and the aspects of poverty and ignorance in nineteenth-century England are made plain.

Crowther concluded, "...what we have in this rendition of Dickens' sometimes misunderstood "Carol" is an accurate comprehension of the agony of a shabby soul.

These, set against the exhibition of conventional manifests of love and cheer, do right by the moral of Dickens and round a trenchant and inspiring Christmas show.

"[6] Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post was also positive: "This may not be A Christmas Carol of recent tradition, but I've an idea it's the way Dickens would have wanted it.

"[10] Harrison's Reports called the film "delightful entertainment", finding that "though it does have its somber moments, it ends on so cheerful a note that one cannot help but leave the theatre in a happy mood.

"[12] Variety, however, called the film "a grim thing that will give tender-aged kiddies viewing it the screaming-meemies, and adults will find it long, dull and greatly overdone."

[16] Patrick Macnee, who played the young Marley, cited the film as his favourite version of the story, stating that it "really seems to capture the true essence of the Dickens novel".

[17] In 1999, Empire film critic Monika Maurer gave the film four out of five stars, feeling that while "some of the other performances have dated, Sim's haunted Scrooge stands the test of time, even today eliciting sympathy and - you just can't help yourself - joy at his transformation", and concluded, "Lashings of festive cheer and a fair dollop of fine performances will leave you in the mood for mince pies and a renewed sense of seasonal goodwill to all men.

[19] Michael Brooke's review is not without criticism, finding the various ghosts to be "distinctly unfrightening", and the Cratchit family "too healthy to be convincingly on the brink of starvation, especially a ruddy-cheeked Tiny Tim who seems barely inconvenienced by his crutches".