Pleasantly mild, about sums up "The Cricket on the Hearth," the screen adaptation of the Dickens novel. A simple, old-fashioned story is told with none of the tricks of of "modern screen advancement" that would in this case prove detrimental. Probably the pace is too leisurely to suit everyone, but for the main the film has accomplished Its mission.
Its chief merit lies in its faithful absorption of much of the quiet charm characterizing Dickens. Only in one respect does it fall down in this. Its characteristic humor is not played up. Tillie Slowboy, the maid-of-all-work, is the only character illustrating the droll types of Dickens to be introduced and she is not so crafty as she might be.
Both Paul Gerson, the producer, and Lorimer Johnston, director, appear in important roles. Johnston is particularly effective as a snuff-sniffing heavy with a petrified heart. The role of the old toymaker, played in the stage version by Joseph Jefferson, is handled sincerely if not brilliantly by Josef Swickard. Three pretty women --Virginia Brown Faire, Fritzi Ridgeway and Margaret Landis-- provide an unusual assortment of feminine pulchritude for one picture.
Miss Ridgeway (currently in vaudeville at the Palace, New York) plays the blind girl around whom the story centers. Fortunately she is not guilty of super-sentimentalizing the role as so often has happened with others of the rather weepy Dickens characters. The settings are restful and expressive of mid-Victorian England, with all its quiet beauty. All in all the picture should prove gratifying to the majority of Dickens' disciples, but film fans seeking thrills may keep away.
