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List Price: $39.95Amazon.com's Price: $29.99 You Save: $9.96 (25%)Prices subject to change.
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9780780021280
Format: Black & White, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC
ISBN: 0780021282
Label: Criterion
Manufacturer: Criterion
Number Of Items: 1
Picture Format: Academy Ratio
Publisher: Criterion
Region Code: 1
Release Date: January 12, 1999
Running Time: 105 minutes
Sales Rank: 30141
Studio: Criterion
Theatrical Release Date: July 30, 1951
Editorial Review:
Description:
Expressionistic noir photography suffuses David Lean's Oliver Twist with a nightmarish quality, fitting its bleak, industrial setting. In Dickens' classic tale, an orphan wends his way from cruel apprenticeship to den of thieves in search of a true home. Here Alec Guinness is the quintessential Fagin, his controversial performance fully restored in Criterion's new digital transfer.
Amazon.com:
David Lean's 1948 version of Charles Dickens' classic novel begins with a bang: the young hero's pregnant mother fighting her way through a storm, a perfect metaphor for Oliver's difficult road ahead. Set in a world of slums in the shadow of Victorian England, the story traces the boy's life in a workhouse and then with a gang of little pickpockets. A stark but good-looking film shot around some impressive sets, Lean's immortal adaptation is perhaps best known for Alec Guinness's remarkable (and slightly controversial) performance as Fagin, the old mentor to the gang of boy thieves. --Tom Keogh
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - All character actors should see this at leat ten times
It's three must-see lessons in character-acting:
Anyone who thinks Alec Guiness can only play nice hasn't seen this. (Also must see KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS where he plays eight characters including an active guy in his early twenties, an old man frozen by Parkinsons' Disease and a woman.)
Robert Newton. Known for saying "Arrrrrrgh, Matey!" To see how incredibly versatile he was, compare this terrifying Sikes to his performance in Hitchcock's JAMAICA INN, where he plays ... Read More
Rating: - Staggeringly Great Film
There are plenty of reviews here urging you to watch this film. Let me say only this: watch it for two geniuses: one, David Lean who directed this masterpiece in daring and haunting style; and Alec Guinnis (sp.?) who plays Fagin. You will never forget this Fagin, not as long as you live. The film has some of the greatest camera work I've ever seen, such as the pub scene where the camera shows you what is going on with all the different characters without a word being said. There is also the long ... Read More
Rating: - Simply Perfect.
There's nothing I can say that has not been said already but for the sake of giving this movie one more positive review and someone who's never seen it one more reason to see it, I shall embark upon this small quest. Legend is the life of Oliver Twist - full of rags and pain and hunger while his soul was ever alight with love of humanity. Dicken's work is so brilliant one would never believe that it could possibly be translated to the screen...well, for every other version in existence, that holds. ... Read More
Rating: - Visual Poetry at it's best.
As much as I like LAWRENCE OF ARABA, though still way too long, I have had to admit that this is David Lean's masterpiece. I saw it projected on the big screen at the Egyptian Theatre during a Lean Retrospective and it dropped my jaw. All of this talk about how LAWRENCE changed editing in motion pictures with its "match cut" blah, blah, blah, when Lean had been editing, or supervising the editing of his films like that all along. Trust American audiences not to believe anything unless it appears on ... Read More
Rating:  - Dissapointed
Ever since I saw the BBC version of Oliver Twist, I've been searching for a faithful adaption that I could watch in one night. Judging by the overwhelming popularity of the David Lean film, I thought this might be what I was looking for. Dissapointed. In this nearly two hour film, Oliver has almost no lines at all, and his personality is lamentably underdeveloped. (Sweet and naive was all I got). Rose, Harry, Mrs. Maylie, and their family Docter were left out, and Monks -- a fascinating, eccentric ... Read More
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