Scarecrow-88
Critically maligned Rankin/Bass animated special introduced by Danny Thomas starring a cricket voiced by Roddy McDowell that arrives in the life of talented toymaker and daughter (Danny and daughter Marlo Thomas) as their lives fall on hard times. Toymaker, Caleb, loses his love of crafting toys when daughter, Bertha, loses her sight and passion for life after her fiancé, Edward (voiced by Ed Ames), is lost at sea after departing with his military. Unable to work and indebted to those vicious moneylenders, Caleb and blind Bertha lose their home and must brave the unknown, finding a job and new place to live. Crafty Tackelton (voiced with mustache-twirling villainy by Hans Conreid), and his insidious raven, offer Caleb a job and less-than-glamorous digs for his services. Cricket follows Caleb and Bertha, truly faithful in their rebounding from the glum and disappointment befalling them but raven is bound and determined to get rid of him...reprehensible his master, Tackelton, asks for Bertha's hand in marriage. Meanwhile Caleb befriends a fellow also enduring hardship, seemingly too old and broken by age's effects to recover and make a success of himself...but looks might be deceiving. Highlight could be how cricket is kidnapped by thugs that are friends with conniving raven, cast aboard a ship, escaping into the sea, and using fish and other water creatures-- essentially hitching a ride on them!--to return home. The use of still cells and simple, not so elaborate or distinctively impressive animation give the film a rather unmemorable visual look, but voicework is buoyed expertly by McDowell and company. The songs I thought were merely okay, with some quite forgettable...if anything, the songs might have dragged this out too long. In fact, if this had utilized McDowell even more, like a lynchpin or glue, rather than litter long songs throughout, it could have been a tightly paced thirty minute sleeper among the Rankin & Bass specials. Instead, this will never quite emerge from the obscurity, if it becomes an annual tradition considering its inclusion in Christmas classic sets now available. The abuse of Tackelton's employ where he demands so much from Caleb and expects mass production and less quality sets him up as worthy of boos but being that this is Dickens, even he is allowed a Scrooge-like transformation thanks to Bertha. Cricket as a lucky device in Caleb and Bertha's favor is challenged but ultimately he is not the albatross of ill fate that he might seem.
ExplorerDS6789
Remember the timeless Charles Dickens' Christmas tale called The Cricket on the Hearth? Well, most people don't either, and there hasn't been a film adaptation of it since 1967, produced by Rankin/Bass, those then-up-and-coming animated holiday special masters. They tell the story, or rather Cricket Crocket himself tells the story...or rather Danny Thomas tells the story, or, you know what? They ALL the tell the story of how a prim and proper cricket changed the lives of a poor toymaker and his daughter...for better and for worse. It all began in spring when C.C. was hopping around, minding his own business, when he came across a toy shop owned by kindly old Caleb Plummer. When Caleb meets Crocket, he immediately invites him to come and stay with he and his daughter, Bertha, who was at present having to say farewell to her fiancée, Edward, who was being called away to serve on the royal navy for two years. For Bertha, it sounded like an eternity, but she promised to wait for him. So as the months passed, Caleb, Bertha, as well as Crocket worked on making toys, for Christmas was coming fast. One fateful night, a ghoulish-looking messenger stops by to inform the Plummers that Edward was lost at sea, and presumed dead. The shock of this news gave Bertha instantaneous hysterical blindness. As a result, Caleb stopped working and spent every waking moment tending to his daughter, bringing in doctors who could not fix her, and borrowing more and more money from creepy moneylenders. Eventually, Caleb was so deep in debt and couldn't pay his rent, and thus the three were thrown out into the street. With no work available anywhere, Caleb considered going to the poor house, but that's when Crocket spotted a toy factory. Maybe they could use an extra hand. Turns out, they could, as they had no hands at all. So, how were they in business if nobody was making toys? Anyway, the factory's owner, a miser named Tackleton, hired on Caleb and he'd be paid in food and shelter.That night, as Crocket complains about the new hearth he has to rest upon, he gets accosted by Tackleton's pet raven. Fortunately, the miser reclaims his pet before Crocket becomes a midnight snack. In the morning, Tackleton chastised Caleb for using too much paint, because it costs money... something I doubt he has much of since he didn't have a working factory or toys to sell before this. However, Crocket and Caleb make proper adjustments when the old miser wasn't around. And then, a few days before Christmas, Caleb bumps into an old man on the street, who looks mighty familiar, and invites him to stay at his place, like he's prone to do with every strange person or creature he runs into. Christmas Eve finds Tackleton in a very generous mood, as he gives Caleb a bonus of 4 shillings and 1 shilling for Bertha...shortly before suggesting he wanted to marry her. Sheesh, when they handed out class, this guy was in the john. Bertha was flattered at the proposal... as I'm sure any shallow, poorly-written female character would be. The old man on the street who, if you haven't figured it out yet, is Edward in cognito, attempts to break his silence, but when Bertha informs him of her engagement to Tackleton, he chickens out. I guess promises mean nothing. Crocket, on the other hand, attempts to sabotage Tackleton's wooing efforts, and in response, he orders the cricket's elimination. So Uriah the crow ventures to a seedy animal dive and enlists the help of two shady fellows who kidnap Crocket and bring him to a sea captain willing to pay good money for captured crickets. Instead, he pays them in bullets. No joke. He actually shoots them. You know, for kids! However, through a series of improbable and downright lucky occurrences, Crocket manages to get back to Tackleton's, where the toys come to life and tell him Edward's sad story: he'd been marooned on a deserted island for 2 years, and when he was finally rescued, he discovered Bertha's blindness and his guilt prevented him from coming clean. Crocket convinces him to stop holding his tongue and go claim the love of his life. Overjoyed, she marries him almost immediately. When Tackleton found out, he was genuinely heartbroken. For you see, beneath his greedy exterior, he was a lonely man who felt unloved. But some kind compliments from Bertha instantly perk up his spirits. For the first time in Mr. Tackleton's life, he felt special. So it all worked out and having a cricket on the hearth is lucky after all.Well, what can I say about Rankin/Bass' Charles Dickens' Cricket on the Hearth? Beautiful songs, beautiful music, decent animation for 1967, good camera-work, and of course, excellent voice acting from Danny and Marlo Thomas, Ed Ames, Hans Conried, Roddy McDowall as good ol' C.C., and of course, the legendary Paul Frees. But as far as story and plot, many things happen that don't make much sense and some things are never resolved. Did Bertha ever get her sight back? Did Tackleton grow a heart and start paying Caleb? So this Christmas, why not give Cricket on the Hearth a look? I decided to watch it after seeing a review by an internet comedian called Phelous. I recommend his review too, it's pretty funny. While Cricket isn't as good as Rudolph, Frosty, Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, Little Drummer Boy or Year Without a Santa Claus, it's still pretty good. It has some sad moments, and some that are downright dark. I mean, really? Senseless, off-screen murder? Regardless, I still recommend it.
TheLittleSongbird
Cricket on the Hearth oddly enough does have some things that are good. The stylised painting style visuals during the songs were quite nice, far more appealing than the animation style of the rest of the movie(though understandably some may find it jarring). Danny Thomas does an excellent job, the voices are done with professionalism and the moments with Bertha and her father are lovingly tender, which I did love. Unfortunately, the rest of Cricket on the Hearth I did find horrible. I found the songs unmemorable and with no sense of life at all and some even don't have anything to do with the story or what's going on in the scene. The writing has no charm and heart and the more humorous parts are very unfunny. The characters are shallow, the only character with some essence of likability is Bertha, the cricket is annoying and mean-spirited and the villain is similarly insipid. The animals also had no relevance to the story. The animation for much of the special has a lot of dull colours which make the already uninteresting backgrounds all the more drab. The character designs are equally unappealing with everybody drawn in a deflated way. But it was the story that fared worst. If I had not known that Cricket on the Hearth was a loose animated adaptation of A Christmas Carol I honestly would never have known it was to do with Christmas. Instead of warming my heart or amusing or moving me, it bored and depressed me with its often mean-spirited(murder, kidnapping), all-over-the-place and weird storytelling. Bertha and her father have some tender moments, but they are not enough to inject any kind of warmth. Those of her and Edward were the kind that we have seen so many times before and explored much more convincingly, it was all too bland and clichéd. All in all, horrible save a few things, one of the worst Rankin/Bass have ever done. 3/10 Bethany Cox
