Oliver Twist (1948)

(On Cable TV, August 2020) There’s something to the faithfulness of David Lean’s adaptation of Oliver Twist that simply makes it feel generic to me. I’m using “generic” in a somewhat unusual sense here – I have seen so many Classic Hollywood adaptations of classic English Literature novels by now that I almost know what to expect before the film even starts playing, and that was Oliver Twist from beginning to end. There are the historical sets, the black-and-white cinematography, the well-mannered theatrical acting from the actors and the loose adaptations in order to make it more of a movie than a book. The only thing that stands out from this Oliver Twist is Alec Guinness’s hideous anti-Semitic makeup as Fagin, a design decision from Lean that has been criticized even since the pre-production of the film and is likely to be criticized forever. Otherwise (and I’ll admit that it’s a big “otherwise”), the film itself feels like an EngLit class brought to motion. Great if you’re illustrating the classics, not so great if, like me, you’ve overdosed on them.