Few other authors had the liberal sensitivity so abundant in Dickens to the human suffering and poverty of the lower classes. The influence of Dickens can be seen in such twentieth century cinematic works as Shoeshine (1946), Los Olvidados (1950), Pixote (1981), and City of God (2002). Wherever there are street boys neglected or exploited, the ghost of Dickens is present. The oppression of the poor and its juxtaposition against the greed and avarice of the wealthy was never more evident than in Victorian England.

Historical Background: Charles Dickens (1812-70) was born in Portsmouth, England and brought up in poverty. The family's circumstances were especially poor in 1823, when Charles was eleven, when his father was thrown into debtors' prison for more than a year. Charles had to support himself working in a dye warehouse, not terribly unlike Oliver Twist's experience in the workhouse. Dickens knew of what he wrote. Dickens did get two years of schooling after his father came into an unexpected inheritance. Consequently, Dickens was able to procure employment, first, as a legal clerk and, later, as a reporter. He began covering the debates in the House of Commons for various London Newspapers. At the same time, he began submitting sketches to magazines, under the penname Boz. When a London publisher invited Dickens to provide literary commentary for a series of humorous sketches by the popular artist Robert Seymour, the result was Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1837), which immediately earned Dickens international recognition.

That taste of fame triggered a prodigious outburst of literary productivity that would last the rest of Dickens's relatively short life. Oliver Twist (1837-9), one of Dickens's earliest works, revealed both his strengths and weaknesses as an author. It had all of the richness of characters, insight into interpersonal relationships, sense of humor, and keen awareness of the social injustices that were Dickens's hallmarks, but it also suffered from its author's rambling style, poor control of plot, and tendency to allow his characters to slip over into caricature. The weaknesses of technique in Dickens's style gradually receded as Dickens matured, but were still quite evident in Oliver Twist. Screen adaptations of this novel therefore have at least the potential of improving on the original, by taking the rich Dickens characters but tightening up the plot structure and making the whole package more compact. That is precisely what David Lean set out to do.

The Story: Born to an unidentified unwed mother (Josephine Stuart), Oliver (John Howard Davies) begins life in a parish workhouse, as an orphan. An intertitle explains: "Oliver cried lustily. If he could have known that he was an orphan, left to the tender mercies of the Beadle and the Matron, he would have cried even louder." At age nine, Oliver is indeed at the mercy of cruel and pecuniary adults, including Mr. Bumble (Francis L. Sullivan), known as "The Beadle," who is henpecked by his domineering wife. Notwithstanding the signs asserting, "God is Love," there is no love for the boys of the workhouse. There is child labor and exploitation, pure and simple, and too little to eat each evening. When Oliver draws the short straw in a lottery, it is his job to pose the simple request that is on the mind of every boy and girl in the factory: "Please Sir, I want some more."

For his ingratitude and insolence, Oliver is sold for £5 to a tradesman, Mr. Sowerberry (Gibb McLaughlin), who operates a coffin making and undertaking business, along with his cranky wife (Kathleen Harrison). There, Oliver has to contend with the maid Charlotte (Diana Dors) and cruel older boy, Noah Claypole (Michael Dear). When Claypole makes insulting remarks about Oliver's mother, the two get into a brawl and Oliver is locked into the coal bin. After a thrashing, Oliver determines to run away that night, to London.

In London, tired and hungry after walking for seven days, Oliver falls under the influence of a slightly older street boy, Artful Dodger (Anthony Newley). Oliver is soon part of a gang of pickpockets who work for and live with a vicious but deceptively ingratiating scoundrel, fence, and miser named Fagin (Alec Guinness). He feeds the boys and provides them with shelter in exchange for the goods that they steal. Allied with Fagin is the nasty and paranoid Bill Sikes (Robert Newton) and his sometimes squeeze, Nancy (Kay Walsh). Oliver, Artful Dodger, and a third boy are sent out to steal goods. Oliver is to observe the other boys at work. Outside a bookstore, the two experienced pickpockets begin to fleece an upper class gentleman, Mr. Brownlow (Henry Stephenson), but the bookstore proprietor happens to spot them. Oliver is the last of the boys to flee and the slowest, so it is he who is ultimately caught, after a thrilling chase, and prosecuted. Fagin and Sikes send Nancy to the courthouse, pretending to be Oliver's concerned sister, to find out if he squeals. Oliver is ill, however, and passes out before answering any of the judge's questions. The bookstore owner shows up and testifies that Oliver was not the thief. Mr. Brownlow, who has taken a shine to Oliver, takes his to his home and has him tended to by Dr. Grimwig (Frederick Lloyd).

Oliver has his first taste of happiness in the home of Mr. Brownlow and especially enjoys the motherly attentions of the housekeeper, Mrs. Bedwin (Amy Veness). On the wall of Mr. Brownlow's study hangs a portrait of his deceased daughter, which viewers recognize as the same young woman who gave birth to Oliver. Thus, unbeknown to either Brownlow or Oliver, they are actually grandfather and grandson. Dr. Grimwig is convinced that Oliver will betray his benefactor at the first opportunity, but Brownlow, trusting his young charge, decides to silence Grimwig by putting Oliver to the test. Oliver is sent to the bookstore with a £5 note and a number of books to return. Along the way, he is kidnapped by Sikes and put back to work for Fagin.

Meanwhile, a shadowy figure, Monks (Ralph Truman), is intent on tracking down the child born to the unknown woman at the workhouse, nine years earlier. Why he is trying to identify and locate Oliver is left for viewers to ponder. Monks gradually traces Oliver's identity through Bumble's wife, who was at the deathbed of the woman who had acted as midwife during Oliver's birth. Monks pays off Fagin to ensure that Oliver is sent off to prison or otherwise permanently indisposed. Apparently, Monks stands to inherit the Brownlow estate if Oliver is never found. Nancy, who has begun to take a kind of protective interest in Oliver, spies on the meeting between Monks and Fagin, and realizing that Oliver is in mortal danger, meets secretly with Mr. Brownlow, who has offered a reward for the recovery of his young friend. Unfortunately, her meeting with Brownlow is overheard by Artful Dodger, who Fagin had paid to spy on Nancy.

Well, I won't add more about how things proceed from here. The drama is set up very nicely at this point. We've got Nancy as risk of Sykes's revenge. We've got a race on that will determine Oliver's fate, involving the police and Brownlow on one side and the villainous trio of Monks, Fagin, and Sikes on the other.

Themes: Dickens's theme, of course, is the tragic consequences of the British class system, especially as it relates to social outcasts, such as orphans and poor children. The exploitation of the boys in this film is damaging of their minds, morals, and bodies, leading inevitably to criminal pursuits. Then the selfsame society that poisons their childhoods later indignantly crushes them for their antisocial behavior. The question is posed most directly by Fagin as the authorities are closing in: "What right have you to butcher me?" I've discussed in other reviews the relationship between societal responsibility and personal responsibility for crimes and argued that it is not an either/or proposition. When a society is especially unjust and when opportunities vary tremendously from one social class to another, the balance of moral culpability for social problems shifts more toward societal responsibility and away from the individual. We can't reasonably demand that people avoid criminal pursuits if such activities are the only avenue available to them for survival. That was the situation for the boys like the Artful Dodger. Although the film provides a happy ending for the protagonist, the likely realities for the other boys were bleak futures indeed.

Production Values: David Lean wrote the screenplay for this film in conjunction with Stanley Haynes. They have maintained substantial fidelity to both the spirit and detail of the original. Where they have engineered changes, they have been almost entirely for the better. The plot was streamlined to maintain an effective cinematic pace, which was no easy task for such an elephantine novel. The screenplay that resulted is a masterpiece of storytelling that exhibits far more real drama and suspense than the original ever possessed. This film and Lean's preceding one, Great Expectations (1946), clearly rank as two of the finest adaptations of literary classics ever committed to film. Though Oliver Twist has had at least twenty different television and cinematic adaptations over the years, this is the one to see. You might also want to see Carol Reed's popular and comparatively light musical version from 1968, Oliver!.

When this film was newly released back in 1948, it was met with controversy in more than one country, relating in each instance to the character Fagin. Riots occurred in Berlin and the film was censored (11-12 minutes worth of cuts were made) before it was shown in America. The accusation was that the character Fagin manifested all-too-obvious negative stereotypes of Jews. There was the long, hooked nose, pointed beard, and an unmistakable accent. In fairness to Lean, however, the Jewish stereotyping was less in this film version than in most others and considerably less than in the novel itself, which refers to Fagin as "The Jew" and makes reference to a "shady Jewish peddling network ". Guinness's make-up for the part was based on Cruikshank's illustration that accompanied the novel. Furthermore, Guinness's performance as the character was broad and did not play mainly off the character's ethnicity. Guinness used his considerable comedic skills to add a degree of sympathy to the mainly malevolent Fagin, demonstrating a degree of protectiveness toward the boys in his charge, in addition to his greedy and exploitive qualities. Ironically, the film was banned in Egypt on the grounds that Fagin was portrayed too sympathetically. Meanwhile, it was banned in Israeli as anti-Semitic.

What little weakness is evident in the screenplay pertains most especially to the character Nancy. Too little basis is provided in this film version for her character development over the course of the story, both with respect to her acquiring a degree of maternal concern for Oliver and her increasingly romantic involvement with Sikes. Both developments seem to come out of nowhere. It's a small weakness in comparison to the great strengths of this exceptional screenplay.

Though Lean's greatest accomplishments as a director, in 1948, still remained almost a decade into the future, his career was already in overdrive, after two remarkable international successes, Brief Encounter (1945) and Great Expectations (1946). He was in complete mastery of his visual style and had the able Guy Green as his cinematographer. The black-and-white photography for this film is impressively clear and luminous and seems ideally suited for the kind of dark, atmospheric canvas required for this story. It is hard to imagine that this film could have been as effective, shot in color. The digital transfer for the Criterion DVD is sharp and vivid, with only very infrequent minor flaws.

The opening sequence is utterly masterful, immediately establishing a mood and atmosphere for the entire film. Flashes of lighting sparkle between ominous clouds stretched across the entire expanse of the screen. Then we see a gnarled, twisted, barren tree branch silhouetted against the pale sky. A rain-soaked young woman appears, staggering, struggling, laboring to reach a solitary light in the distance. She is obviously ripe with child and feeling the first pangs of impending labor. Wincing in pain, she struggles toward the camera and a lighted gate. As she reaches the gate, a flash of lightning briefly illuminates the Parish Workhouse, as plainly as a lithograph. We have yet to hear a single line of dialog or narrative. In fact, the first sound we hear is that of a newborn child – Oliver Twist. Within moments, he will be an orphan. Very few films begin with such a powerful opening scene.

As Oliver proceeds through his harrowing journey in life, viewers are treated to a succession of wonderfully atmospheric sets. There're the workhouse, the undertaker's home, and the bleak and forbidding streets of London. There're Fagan's hideout and the streamside mill, where Sikes ultimately meets his doom. The sets are every bit as important to the progression of the story as either the dialog or the performances. The story seems to be imbedded in a Victorian era canvas, hanging in a London museum. Green makes exceptional use of light and shadows and enriches his painting with a wide variety of striking camera angles. The overall style is darkly expressionistic. The camerawork is especially good in the action scenes, such as the pursuit of Oliver and the later dog chase. Arnold Bax's excellent musical score nicely enhances the atmospheric photography.

One of David Lean's most important skills as a director was his ability to find the right actor for each role, almost every time. Lean had given Alec Guinness his first role in his preceding film, Great Expectations, and quite sensibly brought him back again to play the pivotal role of Fagin. Guinness rewarded Lean with a performance that is full of nuance, mixing menace with humor and slyness with malice. Buried in pounds of prosthetic makeup, deformed and decrepit, Guinness imbues his character with a frightening degree of false sincerity. Guinness's other film appearances included Great Expectations (1946), Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), The Man in a White Suit (1951), The Detective (1954), The Ladykillers (1955), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Our Man in Havana (1959), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965), Scrooge (1970), Murder by Death (1976), Star Wars (1977), and A Passage to India (1984).

Amazingly, Robert Newton entirely matches Guinness's great performance with one of his own as the cunning but hypervigilant Bill Sikes. Newton captures the role so perfectly that it would be hard to picture the character Sikes without seeing Newton's visage. Newton's other film appearances included Gaslight (1940), Major Barbara (1941), Henry V (1944), Odd Man Out (1947), Treasure Island (1950), The High and the Mighty (1954), and Around the World in 80 Days (1956).

It's not usual to leave the title character for third in discussing performances, but one of the oddities of Oliver Twist is that the eponymous character is really not the most interesting character because he's more reactive than proactive and undergoes relatively little character development. I don't view that as a weakness of the story, but simply an attribute. Oliver is there to provide our point of view in reacting to the situations and other characters. It does mean, however, that the part of Oliver is not an especially difficult one, other than the fact that it has to be performed by a child. John Howard Davies had the right quality of wide-eyed innocence and performed the part very well, though there's no particular reason to rank his performance among the greatest by child actors. Davies brought the right combination of sincerity, spunkiness, and vulnerability to make the story work. Davies later had roles in The Rocking Horse Winner (1950) and The Magic Box (1951), but ultimately gave up acting to become a producer. He became an influential person at the British Broadcasting Corporation, producing such shows as Monty Python's Flying Circus and Fawlty Towers.

There are a number of superb supporting performances in this film as well. Francis L. Sullivan, in the role of Mr. Bumble, provides a pretty substantial share of the film's comic relief. He's also given one of the most famous lines (paraphrased a bit): "If the law thinks that a husband can be responsible for his wife's actions, then the law is a bachelor and an ass." Kay Walsh did a fine job as Nancy, given the limitations in the scripting of her role. Henry Stephenson provided the requisite combination of warmth and determination to the part of Mr. Brownlow. Ralph Truman was somewhat nondescript, which is exactly what was needed for the shadowy figure of Monks. Anthony Newley, as the Artful Dodger, actually had a more complex role, in a way, than Davies and was highly effective. There is also, believe it or not, an extraordinary performance by a dog, in this film, playing the part of "Bull's Eye," Sikes's dog. The dog demonstrates both an exceptional emotional range and a capacity to manifest ambivalence that many human actors would do well to equal.

Bottom-Line: The extras with the Criterion DVD are sparse indeed. There's a pretty decent essay by film critic Michael Stragow in the booklet inside the cover and a theatrical trailer on the DVD, but nothing else. There are English subtitles for the hearing impaired. So, what we have here is a classy film adaptation of a classic Dickens novel. Even if the novel bored you to death at some stage in your life, you'll find this film delightful, with far more drama and pace than the book. In this film and Great Expectations, Lean proved himself a master of literary adaptation. This film should not be missed. Like Oliver, I find myself begging, "Please Sir, I want some more." Fortunately, I've still got Great Expectations to look forward to!

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older