OLIVER TWIST is indeed a wonderful movie and this adaptation of the popular novel for me is the best. The director is responsible rounded story, so the biggest fans of the novel (I am one of them) are satisfied. This is a very warm story of poverty, oppression and greed in London in the 19th century. The film highlights the beautiful photograph and a very good scenery. I am fascinated by the game of shadows in the dark. Characterization is good also.All these elements affect the atmosphere of the film. At one point the main character flees through the narrow streets. I'm out of your comfortable armchairs got up and tried to run away with him. I was 12 years old. The opening scene of the movie is really impressive. A child born in a dark atmosphere. The boy takes us through the dark corners of the city, or rather growing up, to finally come to light. A smile and a hug of Oliver Twist is not forgotten.John Howard Davies as Oliver Twist was the boy who gave the film a soul. On the one hand the fragile and delicate, on the other hand shrewd, courageous and witty orphan, that's hard not to love.Alec Guinness as Fagin, stupid is to look at something in the film was never mentioned. The film was banned due to the negative display of leaders of the pickpockets. Fagin is one of the most picturesque characters shown in the film at all. He is immensely clever, insidious and oddly appealing character. I never would have described as the sole villain. Fagin is the personification of the underworld. Poverty and misery create such characters. I would be satisfied when this film would not have a person to villain.However, on one side is, Bill Sykes (Robert Newton) cunning hooligan and on the other side, Mr. Brownlow (Henry Stephenson) gentle and good-natured gentleman. Both play a role in the life of a troubled orphan. Social extremes.

"Oliver Twist" the novel rests at top of mind for the general public when it comes to Charles Dickens. Dickens wrote better novels, so why is "Oliver" so magisterial in his canon? Maybe I'm at fault for not liking the book more, but I suspect the answer has much to do with David Lean.Lean's adaptation of "Oliver Twist" is a textbook example of how a director can boil away the dross and bring out the core of a great story, adhering to the spirit of the author's intent but rediscovering it as a product of its place and time in a way that makes it timeless. The Expressionistic camera-work, its deep-focus lens pulling out details from a seemingly slapdash set, married to an unobtrusive yet penetrating score and a variety of brilliant character actors lending face and voice to a true group effort. It's like "Citizen Kane" meets Hogarth.When we first meet Oliver, he is inside his dying mother as she makes her painful way to a solitary light on a hill, a light that proves more ominous as she gets closer. Her painful journey is later made light of by one of Oliver's first enemies, a beadle named Bumble who sees her strength and bravery as exposing an animal nature that allows for his mistreatment of her son. "God Is Love" says the message on the brick wall of Oliver's workhouse, but there is no love for the boy in the first third of the film, a harrowing journey for any sensitive viewer to make.Francis L. Sullivan plays Bumble, an actor who gives the best performance in Lean's earlier Dickens movie, "Great Expectations." He's quite fine here playing quite a different role, both menacing and funny, but other actors make even deeper impressions.Alec Guinness gives his breakout performance here as Fagin, the crafty thief and seducer of virtue. Yes, Fagin as written by Dickens is also known as "the Jew," and with his big prosthetic nose Guinness plays with that stereotype more than a bit, but he also gets at the core of Dickens' villain by using that to accentuate his role as the consummate outsider, finding diabolical angles in a world where he is not welcome. Guinness was such a cerebral actor that it's hard to adjust to the feral nature of his performance here, except it makes the part and thus the movie.Fagin is a frightening villain, as is first-billed Robert Newton as the crazed Sikes, because we get the fear at the core of their villainy. Dickens wrote "Oliver Twist" not as adventure story but social exposé of his native London, a cruel city of dire poverty and no second chances. Seeing young Oliver (John Howard Davies) at its mercies is no easy thing, and we realize how Fagin and Sikes are products of that society. Watching them face a mob bent on their comeuppance is both thrilling and horrifying, because we know by then how cruel their world is.When the undertaker Sowerberry (Gibb McLaughlin) complains to Bumble early on about the small price given for his services to the workhouse, Bumble just smiles: "So are the coffins!" How he can smile at such a thing is harder to reckon than any of Fagin or Sikes' awful crimes.Being plunged into such a world, one wants for the relief Oliver first finds, than loses, with kindly Mr. Brownlow (Henry Stephenson). Much streamlining is called for here, and aptly done by Lean and co- screenwriter Stanley Haynes. Ditching a maudlin subplot involving a young woman Oliver befriends named Rose Maylie is a stroke of genius given how little she is missed. More problematic is the matter of Oliver's mysterious stalker, Mr. Monks, who does show up here but in a way that raises more questions than answers.Could Oliver have been better incorporated into the film's second half? Howard Davies does great with what he's given, and I for one wanted more. But I think what you do get is pretty classic in its own right, a finale that ranks up there with the best filmdom has ever offered.You will want to read the book after seeing the movie, if you haven't already. And you will likely admire it, as I do, for its humanity and bracing power. Still, for getting across both Dickens' story and its underlying social commentary, no one, not even Dickens himself, did as good a job as Lean and company do here.

Really enjoyed the 1948 film of "Oliver Twist", and to my mind the definitive version of the story. I saw the 1968 musical which was good, but was inflated to 150 minutes with musical numbers and almost came to a stop in some parts. It won an Oscar for Best Picture, but the '48 film was better in several respects.First off, the acting was superior in the Lean picture. Clive Revill was a pale imitation Alec Guinness as Fagin, and Francis L. Sullivan, while not a singer, was a much better actor than Harry Secombe. And, last but not least, Robert Newton's interpretation of Bill Sykes was far superior to Oliver Reed's. Reed's Sykes was a bully while Newton imbued the character with a psychopathic element missing from Reed's. It was also remarkable to note the resemblance between John Howard Davies and Mark Lester, the two child actors who seemed like twins.The earlier version also conveyed the overarching feeling of hopelessness and the grinding poverty of the lower classes, as much a tribute to the art director as to the intelligent script, written by Lean himself. Musical director on that version was Muir Mathieson, and it doesn't get better than Mathieson. "Oliver Twist" is one of the best adaptations of literature to the screen as has ever been done.

Of the five extant full-length features based on Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist (among which I include the 1968 musical), this 1948 version is often considered the yardstick against which all others are measured. It's said that comparisons are odious, but it's necessary to examine it in relation to the other four to reveal why it is so highly regarded, as well as to some extent debunk its revered status.First, we must begin by acknowledging that Dickens's book is a great but somewhat flawed work. It may be considered bad form to even think of criticising an undisputed genius, but bear in mind that this was only his second novel, and he was a young and inexperienced writer. Oliver Twist's strength lies in its larger-than-life characters, sparkling dialogue and imaginative set-pieces, but structurally it has some huge problems. This is why, throughout all the screen versions, depictions of figures such as Mr Bumble, Fagin and Bill Sykes differ very little, key scenes such as asking for more or the handkerchief stealing game are staged similarly, but there are many variations as to the overall plot. While the versions made in 1922 and 1933 are faithful if rather pared-down adaptations, the screenplay by David Lean and Stanley Haynes was the first to do the unthinkable and rewrite Dickens.Probably the most drastic and for me the most necessary difference between this picture and the novel is Oliver's fate after he is forced to accompany Bill Sikes on the burglary. In the novel he is wounded and taken in by the family whose house it is. However, Lean and Haynes do not show the burglary, and keep Oliver in the custody of Fagin and co. until the finale. This is a vast improvement, as it means Oliver remains in real danger throughout the last act, and adds extra motivation to the race to bring the criminals to justice. So crucial to the impact of the picture was this change that it was used again for the 1968 musical and Roman Polanski's 2005 effort, and the image of the young hero clambering over the rooftops with Sikes urging him on is now established in the public conscious.However there is one problematic way in which the 1948 film deviates from all the other versions, and that is in the size of Nancy's role. She is introduced fairly late, after Oliver's arrest, and she gets precious little screen time before being murdered. Significantly, her fondness for Oliver is not developed; she never even speaks to him, and consequently it seems odd when suddenly steps in as his protector. She is not even portrayed especially sympathetically, and as a result her death is not the blow to the audience that it should be. To me, the character of Nancy is the key to the whole thing; she is a surrogate mother (or big sister) figure to Oliver before he finds his real family, and her brutal murder is the biggest wrench of the story. Even the 1933 version, which otherwise has all the sophistication of a school play, recognises this.The 1948 version at least looks great thanks to superlative cinematography by Guy Green, and of course the direction of David Lean. This picture is often praised for its harsh and grimy portrayal of Victorian England's underbelly, and Lean loads every frame with tone and character. He often throws in shots with no actors, which do not contribute directly to the story but add atmosphere to the scene. This kind of shot was by and large a no-no in Hollywood at the time, and for good reason because it can be a distraction, but Lean gets away with it because he does it so well. A great example is the series of storm shots from the opening scene, the best of which is a shot of two thorny stems twitching in the wind, instantly forcing us to think of physical pain, after which we cut to Oliver's mother in agony. The effect is more powerful than would be the shot of her alone. My only complaint with Lean's direction is his tendency to over-direct the low-key scenes, such as the one of Mrs Bumble setting about her husband, which is shot in the same manner as Oliver's assault on Noah Claypole, but as a scene it deserves far less weight.And then we come to the actors. Aficionados of classic British cinema will understand that no-one but Robert Newton could have played Sikes in this production, and he's at his eye-rolling best here, although not as scary as Oliver Reed was in 1968. Kay Walsh is passable, but isn't right for Nancy, and her casting probably has something to do with who her husband was. Alec Guinness's Fagin has been denounced as anti-Semitic; in fact it goes right through anti-Semitism and out the other side. This caricature, with the unfeasibly massive nose and beard flapping around like a bit of old carpet, is simply ridiculous. True, Fagin is supposed to be a comedy character (and to his credit Guinness does ham it up funnily), but Oliver Twist is not a farce, and that over-the-top make-up is all wrong.Through successive stage and screen versions, the story of Oliver Twist has continued to evolve. The musical eliminates the subplot with Monks, and the 2005 picture even goes as far as to remove the coincidence of Oliver being related to Mr Brownlow. This 1948 adaptation deserves credit for making this process of refinement acceptable, which is ironic as in spite of its break with tradition (and its flaws) through its tone and character it is probably the closest in spirit to the original text.