Crotchety Victorian businessman Ebenezer Scrooge (Alastair Sim) has no use for festivity, even at Christmas. After resentfully allowing timid clerk Bob Cratchit (Mervyn Johns) to have the holiday to spend with his loving wife (Hermione Baddeley) and family, Scrooge is swept into a nightmare.
Peter finds himself caught behind Japanese lines in Burma. Francis, a talking army mule, carries him to safety. When Peter says that the animal rescued him, he is put in a psychiatric ward.