Oliver Twist
About Oliver Twist
A woman gives birth in a London workhouse in the 1830s and dies. Her son Oliver, played by Dickie Moore, is abused there and asks Mr. Bumble for more gruel. Early release prints sent him on to the undertaker Sowerberry; those scenes were later cut, so the surviving picture looks as if he runs straight from the workhouse. He falls in with the Artful Dodger and Fagin. Mr. Brownlow takes him in, and Bill Sikes wants him back.
Cast & crew
More about Oliver Twist
William J. Cowen directed. Elizabeth Meehan wrote the screenplay from Dickens. I. E. Chadwick produced it for Chadwick Pictures, and Monogram Pictures released it on February 28, 1933. J. Roy Hunt photographed it. Carl Pierson edited it. Monogram put it out on a very small budget.
Themes
Background
Monogram, a Poverty Row company, released this sound Oliver eight years before David Lean's 1948 version.
Making
The Sowerberry episodes were in early release prints and were later removed. The cut that remains skips from the workhouse to the street.
Audiences
It did not do well and dropped out of circulation for years. It turned up again on television in the 1980s.
Look
J. Roy Hunt photographed the workhouse and the thieves' den.
Music
Mischa Bakaleinikoff wrote the music.
Preservation
A full copy is on the Internet Archive and on Wikimedia Commons. The Sowerberry scenes from the early release prints are missing from the cut that circulates.
Notes
- Irving Pichel plays Fagin. William "Stage" Boyd plays Bill Sikes. Doris Lloyd plays Nancy Sikes.
- Alec B. Francis plays Mr. Brownlow. Barbara Kent plays Rose Maylie. Sonny Ray plays the Artful Dodger. Lionel Belmore plays Mr. Bumble.
- George K. Arthur plays Toby Crackit. Nelson McDowell plays Sowerberry.
- It is the earliest sound adaptation of the novel.
- Boyd used the nickname Stage so he would not be mixed up with the other actor William Boyd.
Scenes
- Oliver asks Mr. Bumble for more gruel.
Influenced by
- Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (1838)
Also available
- Internet Archive (oliver_twist)
- Wikimedia Commons (Oliver Twist (1933).webm)
