Before David Lean went on to direct a series
of epic films that made him rightly famous - Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago
and The Bridge on the River Kwai - he directed a number of very British home-grown
films that are considered smaller classics. In Which We Serve, Brief Encounter,
Blithe Spirit, Hobson's Choice and two adaptations of the novels of Charles
Dickens. Great Expectations in 1946 and then Oliver Twist two years later.
Both shot in black and white and beautifully rendered. I have seen Great
Expectations a few times but somehow Oliver Twist had escaped my attention.
I am glad to finally catch up with it. It is fucking brilliant. Astonishingly
well told and filmed with sets that filled me with joy. There are numerous
scenes that made my toes curl. Every shot, every angle, all the framing is
remarkable. Nearly noir in its shadows and use of light and darkness but
set in the 1800's. Beginning in a thunderous rainstorm with a clearly pregnant
woman stumbling towards the light in the distance, it grabs you immediately
with its imaginative cinematography (Guy Green) and drama.
I expect most people are familiar with the story - it has been made many
times even with a musical which seems insane after watching how dark this
version is - as is the novel. Oliver's mother dies giving birth to him in
a workhouse for children. The boy grows up in dreadful circumstances - famously
asks for more gruel and gets sold to a coffin maker. He runs away, walks
to London and is picked up by the Artful Dodger and brought to Fagin, the
head of the pickpocket gang of mainly children. The rough murderous Bill
Sykes is part of the gang as well as his girlfriend Nancy. After being falsely
accused of stealing, Oliver is taken in by a wealthy elderly gentleman. Who
turns out in the Dickensian world of coincidences to be Oliver's grandfather.
When Oliver arrives in London he is thrust into a city of crowds and chaos
- Lean recreates the feel so well - and the sets of old London with a touch
of Expressionism to them are wonderful as are the lairs of Fagin - a concoction
of stairs and doorways. The boisterous tavern scene as well feels so authentic
and the finale is right out of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I wasn't expecting
this to be so good and just inhaled the look right in.
The acting isn't bad either - Alec Guiness plays Fagin in long nose and whiskers
(though Fagin is never identified as Jewish in the film he was in the book
and the nose was an item of controversy). He is terrific though making Fagin
in turn comic at times (the pick-pocket lesson) or frightening. Robert Newton
is Bill Sykes more sinister than he was as Long John Silver or Blackbeard,
Anthony Newley is the Artful Dodger, the deep baritone of Francis Sullivan
is apt as Mr. Bumble, Henry Stephenson as the grandfather and Kay Walsh as
Nancy - she was Lean's wife at the time and had written the screen play for
Great Expectations. And of course, Oliver played by John Howard Davies, He
doesn't make that much of an impression but I expect that is what Lean wanted
- just a shy sweet boy. After this he starred in The Rocking Horse Winner
(a film I loved as a child) and Tom Brown's School Days. Not much after that
but he was a prodigious producer of British TV shows from the 1960s to the
1990s - among them Faulty Towers and Monty Python.
