Oliver Twist – 1948 | 116mins | Drama | B&W

Plot Synopsis

The most important aim of a film is to depict character and episode. The plot is subsidiary,’ says David Lean. So in this, his second film adaptation of Charles Dickens (Great Expectations was the first), he has deleted various scenes from the book. Through a violent storm, a girl is seen struggling to the workhouse. She dies in childbirth.

At the age of eight, the child, Oliver, is pinched and cowed. Proving difficult to the wicked orphanage official, Oliver (John Howard Davies) is deemed old enough to work-picking oakum. He dares to ask for more gruel. The indignant Mr Bumble, is glad to get rid of him as drudge in an undertaker’s shop. Thrashed for a magnificent revolt, he runs away to London and joins a gang of larcenous street urchins, led by master pickpocket Fagin (Alec Guinness), Oliver is given shelter by Fagin, who trains the young boys as thieves.

When another boy, the Artful Dodger, picks the pocket of a kind old gentleman, it is Oliver who is caught and charged with the offence. He is taken and cared for at the old gentleman’s fine house, the kindly Mr. Brownlow (Henry Stephenson), who unbeknown to everyone but himself is the boy’s grandfather. But the Oliver is carried back to the thieves’ kitchen by the burglar Bill Sikes (Robert Newton) and Nancy. When Sikes hears that Nancy, touched with compassion, has secretly met the kind old gentleman, he beats her to death. The mob surrounds Fagin’s house ; Sikes is killed ; Fagin is thrown in jail, the boy is re-united with his benefactor.