Oliver!

This may be my last musical to review here, and what a note to end on.  Oliver! is one of those rare musical films that carries enough whimsy and charm to make the songs a delightful interjection to the action.  And through this charm, the film becomes universally enjoyable.  Children will enjoy watching the kid characters have just as much at stake as the adults, and adults will enjoy the large scale quality and details of the film.

The plot is a musical interpretation of the Dickens classic, Oliver Twist.  Oliver (Mark Lester) is a charming, angel-faced boy who is simply a victim of his circumstances and the actions of the adults around him.  From the dreary work house, to the seedy streets of London, he seems tossed along the waves like a buoy.  Besides being the innocent kid whose well being is constantly put at risk, Oliver is not the most interesting character in the film.

Nearly all the other characters are unforgettable.  Mr. Bumble (Harry Secombe) steals the show from the start with his iconic bellowing, “More?”  The Artful Dodger (Jack Wild) embodies the perfect young rascal with a whimsical sense of style.  Bill Sikes (Oliver Reed) establishes a fearsome, brutish villain and Nancy (Shani Wallis) helps create balance with her feminine charm and sensitivity to Oliver.

Best of all the characters is Fagin (Ron Moody), the elderly man who mentors dozens of young boys and turns them into pick-pockets.  There’s a distinct flair of charm and energy Moody channels to bring out the best and worst qualities of Fagin all at the same time.  While he’s a scraggly-bearded scoundrel encouraging these poor boys to become petty thieves, he also seems to have an invested interest in seeing that the boys are safe and fed (even if they drink gin with their moldy sausages).

The large production value is what makes the film soar, especially during the musical numbers.  To match the array of characters, the sets have a wonderful sense of whimsy while still portraying the Victorian time period.  These visual elements make characters like the Dodger and Fagin much more realistic and the shifts into song less jarring.  There’s a lot of great timing, especially in the musical numbers, and creativity put in the sets and choreography (which won an honorary Oscar) that help put this film at the top for 1968.  This also seems like one of those films where you can find a new fun detail with every viewing.

“You’ve got to pick-a-pocket or two.”

David Copperfield

Reading the title and forgetting the year, some people may think this film has to do with the cheesy magician.  Long before magic Davey was levitating Ferraris, Charles Dickens thought up a character very dear and near his heart and named him David Copperfield.  Though the film adaptation directed by George Cukor doesn’t include all the characters and incidents from the novel, it captures the essence of Dickens’ work.

Before David was even born, he destined to face hardship.  His father died while he was still in the womb, leaving just his young mother (Elizabeth Allan) and aunt Betsey (Edna May Oliver) to fend for him.  But Betsey only plans to stick around if the baby is a girl, and she storms out with the wind when David emerges otherwise.  Still, young David (Freddie Bartholomew) becomes a healthy, well mannered boy who loves his mother dearly.  When his mother marries the harsh Mr. Murdstone (Basil Rathbone), David’s happy childhood is turned upside-down.  He is beaten for not knowing his studies and locked in a tiny unkept room away from his mother and dear nurse, Peggotty (Jessie Ralph).  Then his mother dies in childbirth and Murdstone sends him to work and fend for himself in London.  After meeting a few good characters, but finding no happiness there, David makes a long journey to Dover to find his aunt Betsey.

When poor little David shows up at her door worn and tired from the road, she finally shows some affection for him.  She and Mr. Dick (Lennox Pawle) nurse clean the boy up and send him to a good school, where he emerges a smart young man ready to write his first book.  But this smart, well rounded young man version of David (Frank Lawton) still has many trials in his life to fight.

To fit in as much of the novel as possible, the film moves at a rather quick pace.  To me, it felt like David had just arrived in London when he left and suddenly he was an adult.  This rapid pace in the narrative may leave some viewers in a whirlwind, but it is not so much that those with no knowledge of the novel will be completely lost.

What the film does best is establish all these interesting characters.  From the moment we see Aunt Betsey marching through the raging wind, we can see she’s a tough old bird.  We don’t have to see Murdstone whip David before we despise him.  And though Mr. Dick is a very minor character, he is most memorable with his giddy expressions and giant kite flying scene.

Though the film is done well and fans of Dickens may really enjoy it, I found it rather boring.  Perhaps it was quickly moving narrative that prevented me from forming much attachment to any of the characters.  Whatever the case, I would not completely dismiss the film, but would suggest reading the novel first.

“Please God, may I have a home now?”

Great Expectations

In David Lean’s adaptation of the classic Dickens novel, young Pip (Tony Wager) is a naive orphan living with a blacksmith and his wife near the marshlands.  One day, while visiting the graves of his parents, an escaped convict asks Pip to bring him food, threatening him with a horrible death.  Gullible but good hearted Pip brings the man some food, but fears he will be in trouble for it.  When the convict is captured, he claims to have stolen the food from the blacksmith’s house himself, sparing Pip any consequences of his actions.

Later, Pip is requested by Miss Havisham (Martita Hunt) to become playmates with her adopted daughter, Estella (Jean Simmons).  The old woman wears her wedding dress and is surrounded by cobwebs and the decay of her wedding day that never came to be.  She has closed out the sun and stays in the room with the long table, set for her wedding.  Estella is a bratty girl who fiercely looks down upon Pip and thrives on building him up just to demoralize him.  The pretty girl’s constant pushing and pulling on Pip only makes him pine for her.  She seems heavily influenced by Miss Havisham, perhaps a tool for revenge against all men.

When Pip (now played by John Mills) is in his late teens, he learns that a mysterious benefactor has arranged for him to go to London to become an educated gentleman.  There he becomes roommates with Herbert Pockets (an amazingly young Alec Guinness in his first speaking role), and learns the fine arts of fencing, dancing, boxing and having lavish sophisticated parties.  Pip and Herbert carelessly rack up more expenses than they plan and Pip realizes his wealth is turning him into a snob.  When he finds out who his benefactor is, he decides to return the favor.

The greatest thing Lean brings to this classic story is an intense visual experience.  The marsh scenes in the beginning feel nearly surreal with so much fog and characters shown in so much shadow that they nearly become silhouettes at times.  In the scenes with Miss Havisham, the gloom she surrounds herself in feels so real, I could believe in a woman who stays in the dark with her decades old wedding cake.  There’s something haunting about the photography that has a heightened feel or reality, at times it feels like the movement is happening in fast-forward.  It’s hard to explain, but somehow this fluidity on screen gave me the idea that everything felt so real and yet dreamlike.  I believe it’s just David Lean working his movie magic.

Sometimes it feels like classic novel adaptations are just a dime a dozen.  Within this blog, I’ve seen more than one really cares to, and usually the film doesn’t do anything more special than give you the basic watered-down story in a quicker time frame.  Dickens is an author we all should read more, but if you do want to see a film depicting his work, this may be it.  There will always be inconsistencies and not every detail from the novel will make it on film.  But what Lean brings to the screen only heightens what Dickens wanted to put in our imagination.

“Come close. Look at me. You aren’t afraid of a woman who has never seen the sun since before you were born?”

 

A Tale of Two Cities

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”

These immortal words from Charles Dickens open the adaptation of his great novel, A Tale of Two Cities.  It’s a tale of rebellion, futile love and sacrifice that the film honors well.

The story opens as the French Revolution looms overhead like a sharpened guillotine.  Lucie (Elizabeth Allan) has just found out that her father is alive and been released from Bastille.  She helps nurse him to physical and mental health back in England and meets Charles Darnay (Donald Woods), a French Aristocrat.  Because of his sympathy toward the peasants of France, Darnay is accused of treason.  His lawyer is Sydney Carton (), a cleaver man who drinks too much, but wins Darnay his freedom.  Both Darnay and Carton fall in love with Lucie, but Darnay marries her and causes Carton to drink even more.  When The Reign of Terror hits France, Darnay is tricked to come back to Paris where he’s sentenced to death by angry peasants who have taken over the judicial system.  Carton is faced with the decision to either let Darnay die and move in on Lucie, or free him by any means possible.

Colman plays a stirring Carton.  This isn’t a character that people automatically decide whether to love or hate, and Colman brings out his great complexity.  He’s triumphant in the courtroom, but romance fails him and it’s not until the final act that the audience can decide whether they can love him or not.

One of the most fascinating scenes depicts the moment the Revolution started.  Throughout the film, their desperation grows until this moment everything snaps.  Everything turns to utter chaos and peasants run through the streets throwing whatever they can find and storming the castle where the aristocrats reside.  As a drawbridge is being closed, people climb and hang off of it and eventually it’s hacked down and the whole courtyard flooded with the angry mob.  The whole scene is wonderfully exciting and a great way to portray a moment in history.

This is a wonderful adaptation of Dickens’s work and Colman plays a stirring Carton.  I recommend this film for anyone who enjoys Dickens or this period in history.

“It’s a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done. It’s a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known.”