Scrooge

In the era of remakes and reboots, it's difficult to imagine a time when any film was the first of its kind. Henry Edwards' 1935 effort Scrooge was the first "talkie" version of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and it made a few key innovations. Edwards spent more time developing the London that created the miser Ebeneezer Scrooge, a city in which incalculable wealth and grinding poverty exist cheek by jowl, and he keeps the spirits that haunt Scrooge invisible to the audience. There's a sense of reality that pays off when the Spirit of Christmas Future reveals the corpse of Tiny Tim to Scrooge -- no euphemisms or niceties here. Kids end up dead and Ebeneezer is damned unless he changes his ways. The Webster Film Series screens Scrooge at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday (December 22 and 23) at Webster University's Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood Avenue; www.webster.edu/film-series). Admission is free.