There's an expression of melancholy in his face, my dear, which is very interesting. He'd make a delightful mute.
I'm trying to mentally conceive the state of the British film scene in 1948 that would lead two of its leading directors to delve back into the past glories of English literature as the foundation for success with movie-going audiences of their times. That's what happened when Laurence Olivier took the Shakespearean route and made Hamlet as his follow-up to Henry V, while David Lean opted for a double-dip of Dickens when he released Oliver Twist on the heels of Great Expectations. Can you imagine something like that happening nowadays? I know that Shakespeare-on-film enjoyed a brief revival in the mid/late 90s (culminating with the dubious Oscar bestowed upon Shakespeare in Love) but that trend has died down considerably over the past decade. And Dickens is strictly relegated to longish made-for-TV mini-series, the better to incorporate all the odd characters, plot twists and period detail that today's Dickens aficionados crave when sitting down to see the visualization of his classic novels. Perhaps Shakespeare and Dickens served as a kind of cultural rallying point for British audiences in that postwar era, as they came to grips with the fact that the old Empire would never quite be the same. Or maybe it's just as simple as the equations drawn up by today's film studios that green-light what seem to be as close to "sure things" as they can figure; if Shakespeare and Dickens were hits in 1944 and '47 (respectively) then, by Gadfrey, they'd be sure to come back for more of the same in 1948!
Well, I'm just glad that Lean and Olivier weren't caught up in some version of a knuckle-headed 1940's "Fast & Furious" franchise, or its equivalent, because their reliance on superior source material, coupled with their indisputable talents, resulted in a pair of films that went on to earn popular and critical acclaim. Hamlet did better in raking in the awards, but Oliver Twist gives the brooding Dane a strong challenge when it comes to evocative characters, vividly imagined settings and sheer cinematic intensity. Having never seen this film before viewing it over the past several days, I have to say that I was genuinely startled by some of the in-your-face techniques that Lean employed, and the ferocious acting as well.
Not only was I unfamiliar with this film, I really didn't know much about the story of Oliver Twist either. Unlike Great Expectations, with which I was greatly familiar from having read the novel and seen several film versions, for whatever reason, Oliver Twist never drew me in. Maybe it was my early childhood repulsion at the musical treatment Oliver!, which turned me off as a kid because I didn't like the idea of watching a bunch of prancing, dancing street urchins carrying on for the amusement of adults. Or perhaps it was just the sense that the novel Oliver Twist was just another variation on Dickens' theme of hard-luck kids who experience some tough knocks in life but go on to meet happy endings after all. Or that I was never assigned to read it in the course of my formal education. I dunno. But a few simple details of the story filtered into my consciousness over the years: Oliver was born into poverty, lived in an orphanage and got in trouble when he asked for a second helping of gruel. He made his way to the slums of London where he fell in with a gang of crooked boys, including the Artful Dodger who was an excellent pickpocket and wore a big hat, and Fagin, a miserly Jewish scoundrel who simultaneously protected and exploited his rascals to suit his own greedy ambitions. I knew nothing about Bill Sykes, his dog, or Nancy. So this story was all pretty new to me, perhaps more so than to the average viewer.
Anyway, the film itself has a lot to offer if you're ever in the mood to pay a virtual visit to some of the grimiest, darkest, dreariest Victorian slumscapes ever put on film. People who appreciate frames full of high-contrast black and white cinematography, with rich depth of detail and a masterful blend of sight and sound will find it easy to get lost in the twisting alleys, musty stairwells and cavernous interiors assembled for the project. Here's a film clip, the transitional scene that shows Oliver running away from the Sowerberry home, where he's been abused and neglected in his apprenticeship to an undertaker. Check out the merry chaos of the marketplace and feel the tension mount as the Artful Dodger and Oliver weave their way through the maze that leads to Fagin's lair!
Lean is not content though to merely create a skillful illusion of 19th century London - on several occasions, he takes a very aggressive approach (compared to other films of this era, anyway) of putting the viewer directly into a first person role with his camera, so that we're taking punches to the face, being dragged by the hand into perilous surroundings, getting woozy and collapsing from dehydration and more. The effect creates a sense of empathy for Oliver and immediacy of experience that I imagine must have startled some in its audience, especially if they, like me, were expecting a story a bit more on the safe and sentimental side than what Oliver Twist delivers - and as for me, I enjoyed the shock!
The casting was uniformly on target, with all of the major and minor characters hitting their marks, and several performances rising to the level of what I consider definitive for the roles, with the aforementioned caveat of my prior unfamiliarity with the original source. The comic players, like Francis Sullivan as Mr. Bumble and the old codger who frequently mentioned his willingness to eat his head in the event of some improbable occurrence, easily met my expectations of always finding plenty of amusing eccentrics in a Dickens tale. And of course they found talented boys to play Oliver and the Dodger - but my highest praise goes to the heavies here: Alec Guinness amazed me with his controversial hook-nosed portrayal of Fagin that stirred more outrage and censorship in Europe, the USA and the Middle East for its proximity to anti-Semitic stereotypes than I think was deserved - but then, it was just a few years after the liberation of the concentration camps... When we first see Fagin, he comes across as a sleazy but roguishly charming leader of a delinquent boy's club, but he reveals deeper levels of manipulative calculation and then eventually generates pathos as we realize just how hopelessly ensnared he is in the web of fraud and deceit he's fallen into. Then there's the malevolent sadism of Bill Sykes, who's role as the big villain is obvious from his first appearance - but who goes on to be a lot meaner and violent than I was prepared for. Finally, in the role that impressed me the most of anyone, Kay Walsh (David Lean's wife at the time) as Nancy, Bill's common-law wife and a lifelong protege of Fagin's, whose passionate emotions come through with bracing clarity, whether she's communicating them through facial expressions, body language or with the full release of pent-up fury produced by her wretched lot in life. Such power and dignity! The exchanges that take place between these characters toward the film's conclusion lift it well above the saccharine melodrama that the story could easily have turned into (and which did afflict, in my opinion, the latter half of Great Expectations.)
Here's a link to an in-depth and skillful analysis of a crucial scene in the film that I won't describe any further, for the sake of those who haven't seen it yet. It's from a blog called Rancid Popcorn that I like so much that I'm adding it to my sidebar. Nice work, Darrell!
Permeating the film is a sharp and incisive social conscience that comes through most sharply in the early scenes, especially the blatant hypocrisy of those who run the Parish Workhouse, basically starving the children (purposefully withholding meat for "behavior management" purposes, as we later discover) while gluttonously stuffing themselves in their dining chamber (while the kids pitifully look on behind iron bars.) Lean doesn't make explicit references to any kind of postwar rebuilding of society in making his points, but he probably didn't need to. He does indicate the kind of attitude most desirable in the hearts and minds of the privileged class through the characters of Mr. Brownlow and his elderly maid Bedwin, who see in Oliver a potential that few others among their peers bother to look for. Of course, their fondness for Oliver is based on a fantastically improbable set of circumstances, so I have my doubts as to how many real opinions this film actually changed. But it did make for a couple hours of fascinating visitation to a time and place that is probably best to have behind us.
As a DVD, this is another one of those old Criterion bare-bones offerings - you get a theatrical trailer and a brief printed essay on the film - that's it! There are a few spots where the image is clearly damaged, indicating that little if any restoration work was done, but the transfer is good and the visual images are for the most part exquisite. As far as Criterion titles go, this is probably one of the "least hip" of their offerings, I suppose, but worth picking up at a bargain price (which can easily be found.) It's hard to justify paying the full $40 though, compared to what you can get for that price in newer sets.
Next: The Red Shoes
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