Much as the previous silent Scrooges interested me, I am fascinated by the 1914 version. It runs to 22 minutes (some cuts are abrupt enough to suggest something is missing) and although Charles Rock makes a lively Scrooge, this is decidedly a Cratchit movie.
We open with Bob Cratchit putting up holiday greenery in the office—just a little, perhaps hoping the boss won’t notice, and then puts coal on the fire just as Ebenezer Scrooge walks in. Scrooge berates Cratchit for wasting coal, and actually takes a lump of coal OUT of the fire Spotting the sprig of holly, he throws that down toward the fire, and Cratchit makes THAT face. (Though Charles Ogle uses a similar face in 1910 when reacting to his employer’s tantrums, George Bellamy is somehow channeling Marty Feldman: even his hair takes on a Feldmanesque cachet. Scrooge, meanwhile, comes across as something of a phase between the 1913 Seymour Hicks and the 1935 Seymour Hicks.)
Fred now arrives with his wife, who is so appalled at Uncle Scrooge’s response that she leaves at once. Fred makes his pitch for Christmas, and Cratchit applauds, for another scolding. After Fred departs, the charity solicitors appear: Bob tries to hand them two copper coins without the boss seeing. He is not very successful at this. He also grooves along with the carolers outside, whom Scrooge threatens with his ruler. At the end of the work day, Scrooge scolds Cratchit again about the coal, and walks off, when wished a Merry Christmas, to the tavern where, as Dickens noted, he takes his supper. Before sitting down, Ebenezer takes time to scold the other guests, who are drinking Christmas punch.
We now follow Bob from the office to the Cratchit house as a contrast to Scrooge’s lifestyle, and to remind us whose movie this really is. There are roughly four Cratchit children (the number seems to depend on how much room is available in the scene) and they are the smallest, youngest Cratchit children ever. Tiny Tim hides, rather than Martha. Once Tim wins the game of hide and seek, we go back to the tavern, where Scrooge pauses to growl again at the revelers on his way out into the snow. On the way home, Scrooge chases some children, knocks an apple from the hands of an apple seller, and marches on home, where a reasonably scary Marley takes up roughly a third of the front door.
Scrooge mounts the stairs to a rather flat apartment. We were shown the stairs because not long after, Marley starts up them as well, pausing to pull bell chains just as Scrooge is taking that bit of gruel. Reaching Scrooge, he delivers so few lines that it hardly seems worth his walking upstairs. Scrooge, shocked, staggers to bed.
A robed man carrying a Christmas tree enters and tells Scrooge to come along, touching Ebenezer’s hand to his heart to uphold him. But since Scrooge does not have a window, instead of flying, they walk out the door and around the corner into the past. Ebenezer is shown his younger self weeping at school (the lad is NOT rescued by his sister) and then goes to the Fezziwig party—nine people and a fiddler. The Scrooge of the present dances along a little, in a melancholy way, and is then walked back home to bed.
The Ghost of Christmas Present is not very tall, but is dressed in true Ghost of Christmas Present garb. He also walks Scrooge outside and around the corner. They arrive at Fred’s party in time for Blind Mans Buff, which Scrooge enjoys, after which Fred proposes a toast to his uncle. The Niece refuses to drink it but Fred talks her ‘round. (Is that painting hanging on the wall a portrait of Uncle Scrooge as a young man? Fred IS attached to family memories.) Scrooge is having such a good time he objects to being marched out, but it’s time to visit the Cratchits. THEY drink Bob’s toast to his boss without apparent objection. Again, Scrooge would like to stay but is taken home to bed.
He is now wakened by a chap in medieval cloak and cowl, and taken up an invisible flight of stairs to a gravestone WE can’t read. The title card obliges with “His Own Tombstone”. He pleads with the spirit, who points up in the air and rises with Scrooge back into Ebenezer’s bedroom. Scrooge pleads a little more and the spirit leaves.
Scrooge wakes in the morning, is for some reason amazed to see his bedcurtains, and feels his arms and face to make sure he is still solid. He thanks God on his knees, and then jumps up, making plans and getting dressed. (Doesn’t take long: he barely UNdressed the night before.) Outdoors, he calls out to some children, who back off, suspicious, until he hands them coins from a little pouch we clearly just saw him empty into his pocket (maybe he carries a LOT of money pouches) The charity solicitors nearly don’t see him, but he stops them and pledges a hundred pounds. He then goes to the poulterer’s shop and, in a bright, chipper mood, demands the best turkey in the joint. He has the delivery boy take it with a note “To Bob Cratchit from Mr. Scrooge.”
We return to the Cratchits’ place, where we are having a good time and then pause to despair over Tiny Tim’s health (since we have not mentioned this so far). Mrs. Cratchit strays under some mistletoe, and good spirits are restored. A boy arrives bearing a turkey and Bob is positive there’s been some mistake. Mrs. Cratchit swoons when she hears it is from Mr. Scrooge. Bob, eventually convinced the turkey is for him, hands the boy an apple from the table as a tip. Meanwhile Scrooge is making his way into Fred’s dining room, where the three of them (the Niece, as the titles call her, is not at all frightened) sit down to eat.
Scrooge hurries to the office early; he is thrilled that Bob is not in yet. Chilly, he bends down to inspect the fireplace and is grieved to find the holly he threw down on Christmas Eve, and has to wipe his eyes with a kerchief out of the tail pockets of his jacket. When Bob arrives, Ebenezer has a rough time keeping a straight face as he plays his little joke (again prefiguring the 1935 version). Cratchit recoils in horror on being told his salary will be doubled, and even after Scrooge has counted all the coins out of a little pouch (another?) and put them back in and put the pouch into Bob’s hand, grabs a ruler to strike down the madman. Ebenezer finds the threatened assault hilarious, and somehow gets Bob to drop the ruler and believe. We then “in the days after” see Ebenezer, with Fred and Niece, arriving at the Cratchit home, to be welcomed to the table, where Scrooge bounces Tiny Tim on his knee and BOB raises a mug to call out “God bless us, every one.”
Scrooge does his very best to hold our attention. The ghosts are not much competition, as usual in the silents, despite Marley’s awesome demeanor. But George Bellamy’s Cratchit steals the show whenever he appears, though he does have to compete with Mrs. Cratchit, played by Mary Brough (who has no other acting credits the Interwebs could find for me. Watching her makes me wish this had been a sound picture.)
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