Oliver Twist (1933)
1h 20m | PG-13
An orphan boy in 1830s London is abused in a workhouse, then falls into the clutches of a gang of thieves.
Director: William J. Cowen
Studio: Monogram Pictures
Genre: Drama
Video: 720p
Cast
Dickie Moore
as Oliver Twist
Irving Pichel
as Fagin
William 'Stage' Boyd
as Bill Sikes
Doris Lloyd
as Nancy Sikes
Alec B. Francis
as Mr. Brownlow
Barbara Kent
as Rose Maylie
Reviews
I don't know how many versions of this classic Dickens story I have seen (I was even in one on stage in the early 1980s) but I have to give this credit for being the only one, to date, that has made me laugh. The cherubic young Dickie Moore in the title role was seven or eight when he made this, and frequently he looks like he awaiting instructions from an off-screen parent before commencing his scene - more often than not with an hugely inappropriate smile, or grin, or both... The rest of the cast do a workmanlike job with this super story; Irving Pichel is quite convincing as the manipulative miser "Fagin", as is Sonny Ray with his wobbly hat, as the "Artful Dodger" and a suitably sinister William Boyd as the villainous "Sikes". Subsequent versions are grittier and darker, offering us a much more malevolent view of London at the very start of the Victorian era, but this has a certain charm to it that makes the brief, quite well (and eerily at times) stitched together, adaptation well worth a gander.