Cheap Oliver Twist - Criterion Collection (DVD) (Robert Newton, Alec Guinness, Kay Walsh) (David Lean) Price

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Customer Reviews of Oliver Twist - Criterion Collection

Watch literature become cinema.
While it's silly to be arbitary about what makes great art in any form, a fair test of a movie's cinematic quality is how long it holds your attention without dialog...and...beyond that...how long it holds your attention without dialog without your noticing it. That's how you know you're in the grip of a masterpiece with David Lean's translation of Dickens' "Oliver Twist" into film. He's adapting Dickens, for goodness sake, yet the first 24 minutes of the film doesn't have a word in it. Just gripping black-and-white cinematography, some very expressive actors, wonderful music by Sir Arnold Bax...all beautifully focused and grippingly concentrated under David Lean's watchful eye. Although it's his first solo feature film directing credit, his gift for narrative in cinematic form already equals that of Dickens' narrative gift in literature...as good as it gets. John Howard Davies as Oliver Twist is exquisitely handled, his beautiful, androgynous face representing the powerful innocence of his character. Alec Guiness, submerged in elaborate makeup, brings Fagin to perfect, complex life in a portrait that is at once completely inhabited, yet full of objective wit and professional relish. And Robert Newton's Bill Sykes, primarily created by Newton's exquisite pantomime framed in successive Lean closeups, is one of the most self-tortured villains you'll ever see. There's no insight to be found in Sykes' properly limited grasp of words, but oh, those eyes! This is one of those movies that shows you how highly-conceived cinema can net out into the greatest entertainment medium established during the 20th century.

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The most unknown masterpiece this world has yet produced!
Many films have been made, but none in history have matched this one in its all-round technical brilliance. Every last element--Acting: particularly Guinness's richly villanous Fagin, and Newton's terrifyingly larger-than-life Bill Sikes; Direction: David Lean's true masterpiece, a cinematic milestone of such immediacy, it has all the impact and more than any '90's film; Adaptation: distilling the drama and sweep of Dickens' voluminous novel into less than 2 hours; Photography: dazzling the eye with its ravishing camera movements and stunning detail; Music,wondrously witty and almost operatic in its texture by Sir Arnold Bax; & Art direction: a massive studio set that seems all the size of London. Due to controversy, it was shunned its due acclaim, (and devastated this high-budgeted classic's chance at the box-office, contributing to the near-bankruptcy of Britain's film industry soon after) but at first viewing the controversy ends. See it, and wonder not that a 22-year old writes such a glowing review; for truly, "Oliver Twist" is a film for the ages!!! *P.S.: Note Lean's genius in scene where Sikes murders Nancy; without showing any violence, Newton's frightening intensity and Lean's brilliant use of image and sound convey the full shocking violence of the scene.

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Dark Brilliance
Although it takes liberties with the plot of Charles Dickens' classic, David Lean's 1948 version of OLIVER TWIST brilliantly captures the darkness and desolation, as well as the grotesqueness and humor, of its source. John Howard Davies as Oliver is the picture of angelic innocence. His underworld nemeses include Alec Guinness, the most repulsive Fagin imaginable; Robert Newton, perfect as the murderous Bill Sikes; and the teenage Anthony Newley, an intense and authentically Cockney Artful Dodger. Kay Walsh is excellent as the doomed Nancy, though I personally would prefer a more youthful depiction of the character. With its vivid cast and masterful direction, Lean's stirring yet unsentimental OLIVER TWIST is surely one of the finest films ever made of a Dickens novel.