|
L’enfance d’Oliver Twist
Also known as Oliver Twist in the USA
(1910) France
B&W : One reel
Directed by Camille de Morlhon
Cast: Renée Pré [Oliver Twist], Jean Périer, Baron Fils (Louis Baron fils), Madeleine Guitty
Le Film d’Art production; distributed by Pathé Frères. / From the novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format. / The film was released in the USA by Motion Picture Distributing & Sales Company on 23 June 1910.
Drama: Historical.
Synopsis: [?] [From The Moving Picture World]? Oliver Twist, an orphan apprenticed in London to a master who ill-treats him, runs away and is found wandering, famished and penniless, by Bill Sykes and the Artful Dodger, two of London’s hooligans of that period. They take him to Fagin, the old Jew receiver of stolen property, who having provided him with a good meal, wants him to turn pickpocket and work for him. He is forced to start out with Sykes and the Dodger as instructors, and as a first lesson an old gentleman, Mr. Brownlow, is easily robbed of his watch by the Artful Dodger. Oliver had all the time objected to the crime, but he is the one captured by Brownlow and arrested. A storekeeper, however, overhears the truth when the two culprits are conversing outside his store and hastens to court in time to free Oliver, who is adopted by Mr. Brownlow on hearing his sad story. Some months after, when sent on an errand by his benefactor, he is shot by Sykes for refusing to aid him and his companions in a robbery. Fagin and his gang are, however, soon after this captured and imprisoned, and on his recovery Oliver visits Fagin in jail and forgives him for the wrongs he tried to do him.
Reviews: [The Moving Picture World, 27 August 1910, page ?] Lovers of Dickens will be pleased to see this reproduction of one of his great stories. It is one thing to read the story, getting into as close sympathy as possible with the characters, and quite another to see those characters step out of a book and perform their parts with all the life and animation with which one’s imagination may have endowed them. While the writer of this confesses to an inability to say whether all the minor details of the picture are in accord with the facts, he does not hesitate to say that it seems to depict it as he understands it in its main features. There is a wealth of scenery and staging which is supposed to be historically correct and probably is, as near so as possible now. Perhaps the principal thing to be considered is the fuller appreciation of the author’s work which will follow this illustration. To see one’s book live and move is well worth while, but not until the motion picture came was it possible. The adequate production of the work of great authors helps the cause of literature and plays an important part in the development of literary taste among thousands who perhaps never had the opportunity or time to read the works presented.
Survival status: (unknown)
Current rights holder: (unknown) [France]; Public domain [USA].
Keywords: Authors: Charles Dickens
Listing updated: 3 June 2024.
References: Bardèche-History p. 44 : Website-IMDb.
|
