Hicks's most famous role was that of Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol". He first played this role in 1901 and eventually played it thousands of times onstage, often at benefits, and twice on film: the 1913 silent film "Scrooge" and the 1935 film "Scrooge", produced in England. In 1926, Pathé Pictures released the 1913 film in America under the title "Old Scrooge". This 1926 print has been released on DVD. The 1935 "Scrooge" was the first feature-length film version of the story with sound. The film has been praised for its vivid atmosphere, but most of the ghosts in the film are not seen on screen, except for the Ghost of Christmas Present (Oscar Asche). Donald Calthrop portrays Bob Cratchit, and Maurice Evans has a bit part as one of Scrooge's debtors. Most prints in circulation are of the abridged, six-reel (hour-long) version. The film was seldom seen due to the popularity of the 1938 and the 1951 film versions of Dickens's novel. Poor-quality prints were shown on television in the 1980s, but in 2002 the film was restored to its original eight-reel length and issued on DVD. In 2007 the hour-long version was issued in a colourised edition.