Charles Dickens

  • Scrooge (1935)

    Scrooge (1935)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) According to Wikipedia, there’s been almost 20 straight film adaptations of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (a number that swells well into the hundreds when you throw in the TV adaptations, parodies and derivative works à la Scrooged), and the 1935 version of Scrooge is certainly one of them. I kid, but the truth is that I overdosed in December 2018 on roughly five different versions of the story (including one whose production date I was never able to formally identify for sure) and even waiting eight months before clearing my DVR of Christmas leftovers wasn’t long enough to get me interested in any other straight take on the story. This being said, there is something intriguing about a mid-1930s version of the story. The images may be muddy, the sound may be fuzzy, the special effects underwhelming (some of the ghosts, intriguingly, are never quite shown) and the performances a bit overdone, but the nature of Dicken’s story makes it unusually timeless, even enhanced by those now-historical takes on the story. The language is theatrical, the black-and-white cinematography old-fashioned and production values deliciously old-school … far closer to the original intent than, say, the 2009 full-CGI version. At barely 78 minutes, it’s also admirably efficient in the way it rushes through the expected plot points and removes a few less-important ones. That the film feels like cinematic muzak, to be left on while doing other things around the house, does have its charm.

  • A Tale of Two Cities (1935)

    A Tale of Two Cities (1935)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2019) Not being all that familiar with Charles Dickens’s novel beyond the celebrated opening lines, I got to enjoy A Tale of Two Cities first as a story and then as a film. As such, I had a better time than expected: the story takes twists and turns that may be unpredictable to modern audiences weaned on a clean three-act structure, and on more traditional notions of heroism. The dialogue here is remarkably good, and the actors do get substantial parts to play. As befits a mid-1930s prestige production, there are great costumes, lavish sets, and arresting set-pieces. The pivotal Prise de la Bastille sequence does feel as if it comes from another movie as it switches from costume drama to large-scale action-packed filmmaking—it’s even explicitly credited to another director! Still, it does set the stage for the film’s more sombre sequences with post-revolutionary kangaroo courts convicting the guilty and the innocents alike. Despite some hiccups in the plotting challenge of trying to fit a complex multi-year novel in barely two hours, I quite enjoyed the film—good work by the actors helps a lot in executing a good script. Ronald Colman is particularly good as the self-acknowledged drunk lawyer who becomes the hero of the story. One of my favourite character actresses of the era, Edna May Oliver, gets a few choice quips and even an action sequence late in the movie. The elegiac ending sequence, deftly handling tricky melodramatic material, does tie the film in a satisfying bow. A Tale of Two Cities works best as a double feature with the also-1935 version of David Copperfield for a double dose of 1930s Dickens featuring Oliver.

  • Oliver Twist (1948)

    Oliver Twist (1948)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2019) I have now seen three adaptations of Charles Dickens’ classic Oliver Twist in a single year, and that is about two more than strictly necessary. That being said, this 1948 take from director David Lean is about as close to a canonical one as it gets. It’s exceptionally well directed, lavishly produced with very good black-and-white cinematography with deep use of shadows to give an extra-gloomy atmosphere. As usual for the story, this is a tale of misery piled upon misery, with the very detailed set giving a still-credible portrayal of life in gloomy low-class London. Characters die a lot, sometimes not very gracefully. The one aspect in the work I’m really not fond of, however, is the hideously racist Jewish stereotyping that Alec Guinness gives to his interpretation of Fagin—a monumentally wrong note in an otherwise strong literary adaptation. Do not, under any circumstance, prefer the atrocious Oliver! musical adaptation to this version. Sometimes, literary classics deserve the classic filmmaking adaptation treatment.

  • Oliver! (1968)

    Oliver! (1968)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2018) Well, that settles it—I like my musicals funny and romantic, not dramatic and dour. Fast sinking down my list of least favourite Oscar-winning pictures, Oliver! may be a respectable musical adaptation of Dickens’s Oliver Twist, that doesn’t necessarily make it fun or enjoyable. I had a really hard time staying interested in the film, as the musical element seemed to distract from the dramatic bones of the story rather than enhance it. By the time characters die, I had my fill of the film. To be fair, I’m not criticizing the production itself—the costumes are great, the historical re-creation is credible and the actors are fine in their singing roles. The simplest explanation is that Oliver! simply failed to reach me where it counts. I remain open to the possibility that another viewing in twenty years or so may produce different results.