DVD/150: OLIVER TWIST (David Lean, 1948)

Two years after GREAT EXPECTATIONS, David Lean returned to Dickens for a second time with OLIVER TWIST.

Lean and co-adapter Stanley Haynes stripped away any characters that pulled focus from Oliver's perilous adventures which leaves a clear narrative for Dickens' characters to come to fully-rounded life.

John Howard Davies was a perfect Oliver, never fading off screen even among the actors around him all giving full-blooded, characterful perforrmances.

Anthony Newley is a wonderful Artful Dodger while Kay Walsh (then Mrs David Lean) is a fiery Nancy - her murder scene remains as terrifying as when I first saw it as Bill Sykes' bulldog frantically scratches at the door to escape her screams.

Robert Newton is an average Bill Sykes but all are eclipsed by Alec Guinness' Fagin. Just 34, he is unforgettable - Lean requested a bigger nose for him as the original make-up looked more like Jesus!

Shelf or charity shop?  A definite shelf. Controversy erupted when it was released - it was banned for two years in the USA as the character of Fagin was judged anti-semitic (which probably explains why it received no Academy Award nominations). When finally released seven minutes of Guinness' performance were edited out.  There were calls to ban it in Germany and in Israel too - but it was banned in Egypt for making Fagin too sympathetic!  OLIVER TWIST is memorable also because of the contributions of Guy Green's cinematography and John Bryan's production design, both returning after GREAT EXPECTATIONS.  Speaking of which Kay Walsh - who had suggested the way that film should end - here was responsible for OLIVER TWIST's moody opening as Oliver's mother battles a storm across the moors to reach the workhouse. 

 

DVD/150: GREAT EXPECTATIONS (David Lean, 1946)

There had already been two films of Dickens' novel but David Lean's version has reigned supreme ever since, despite two more screen adaptations and six TV versions.

Lean had only seen a 1939 stage version, written by Alec Guinness who also played Herbert Pockett.  Seven years later, Lean cast him in the same role; he also cast that production's Miss Haversham, the wonderful Martita Hunt.

Lean wrote the film script with his producers Ronald Neame and Anthony Havelock-Allan, other writers included Cecil McGivern and Lean's actress wife Kay Walsh who wrote the final scene.  It's a text-book adaptation.

Academy Awards deservedly went to Guy Green's cinematography and John Bryan's art direction; they deliver a believable world with a wonderful sense of place, the desolate Kent marshes of Pip's unhappy childhood, the bustling Chancery Lane of his life as a 'gentleman', the gothic decepitude of Miss Haversham's crumbling mansion.

Shelf or charity shop?  A definite keeper - it's a classic for a reason.  Lean's subtle direction works wonders with his wonderous cast: Guinness (in his first major screen role) is delicious as Herbert Pockett while John Forrest is perfect as teenage Herbert, Martita Hunt's magnificent ruin of Miss Haversham, Finlay Currie's scary but dignified Magwitch, Francis L Sullivan's Jaggers, the conceited spite of Jean Simmons' young Estella and Anthony Wager's sad young Pip.  Valerie Hobson is well cast as the brittle older Estella while John Mills - although too old for the role - is a personable Pip.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL at the Old Vic - Rhys Ifan's Ghost Dance

Yes it's that time of the year when Owen seeks out a new adaptation of Charles Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL - more often than not to be able to say "They don't do *that* in the book".  This year it was to the Old Vic we ventured to see how Ebenezer Scrooge saw the light on Christmas Eve night and became a better man for it...

 

The Old Vic has been radically changed with a transom stage that dissects the auditorium in two - and audience seating on the stage too - for a production that brings the audience right into the centre of the Jack Thorne's version of the story though it wasn't used to it's fullest extent, most of the action still took place in the centre of the stage crossroads - the transom just made for some room for dancing and, at it's best, for Jacob Marley's lengthy train of chains and cashboxes.

For all the production's explosion of theatricality - more of that later - Thorne's adaptation felt thin and uninvolved, maybe I am over-familiar with the story but it felt like they were playing the synopsis and not the script.  Maybe it was Thorne's take on Dickens tale; Thorne has invented the character of Scrooge's father who is emotionally distant and uncaring - ah so that's it - Scrooge isn't nasty he just never had enough love in his childhood - and to quote Roxie Hart in CHICAGO - "and that's show biz, kids".  I think I prefer my Scrooge to just be a bastard.

None of the ghostly apparitions changed the tempo either - maybe because they were all played by similar-looking women - and the Ghost of Christmas Future was profoundly unscary, what is the point of that??  Scrooge really didn't have far to jump from being just narked to embracing life.

It felt like director Matthew Warchus couldn't wait to get to the scene where Scrooge wakes up a changed man on Christmas morning and the preparations for the biggest Xmas feat ever take over the whole of the auditorium while the audience experiences the wonder of a white Christmas.  But is Scrooge just dreaming?

I loved the theatricality of it all - the ensemble handing out free mince pies and oranges before the show started, the bell-ringing for lovely hushed versions of Christmas carols, the snow blizzards, the It's A Knockout feel to the Xmas dinner preparations but it all felt a bit added on; none of it seemed to rise from Thorne's text.

Rhys Ifans is good as Scrooge looking like a wizened husk of a man who blooms into an excitable beanstalk at the joy of life, he has great charisma on stage and it has just been announced that he will make a third Old Vic appearance in 2018 in a new play about the music business.

There was fine contributions from John Dagleish as Bob Cratchett, Alex Gaumond as Bob Marley and Golda Rosheuvel as the Ghost of Christmas Present.  I also liked Erin Doherty as Belle who has an invented scene at the close of the play where Scrooge visits her to apologize for his behaviour as a young man and she replies in a very non-Dickensian way that without him in her earlier life she would not be happily married and able to forgive him all these years later.

Warchus directs with a steady hand but the show does belong to designer Rob Howell and lighting designer Hugh Vanstone who create a very unique theatrical experience.  The music adds greatly to the feel of the show and Christopher Nightingale deserves plaudits for his composing and arranging of carols.

I would recommend A CHRISTMAS CAROL for it's exuberant festive finale and nice performances but do we really need a psychologically-profiled Scrooge?  I don't think so.

Dvd/150: GREAT EXPECTATIONS (Brian Kirk, 2011, tv)

An excellent BBC adaptation of GREAT EXPECTATIONS, Charles Dickens' tale of advancement and misjudgement.

Orphaned Pip lives a deprived life on the Kent marshes but two encounters change his life: with escaped convict Magwich who Pip shows kindness to, and then being invited into the neglected home of Miss Havisham to play with her adopted daughter Estella, who has been raised to be haughty and unloving.  Despite this, Pip is besotted with her.

Seven years later Pip is informed by the lawyer Jaggers that he has a benefactor who will pay for Pip to live in London as a gentleman.  Pip relishes his new life but discovers the past has ways of reclaiming him.

Sarah Phelps' adaptation highlights the unhappy lives of the women in the story and the strong performances include Douglas Booth, Vanessa Kirby, David Suchet, Paul Ritter, Harry Lloyd, Ray Winstone and Gillian Anderson's ethereal Miss Haversham.

Shelf or charity shop?  I have great expectations that this will stay on the shelf!