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Oliver Twist (1948 film)

Oliver Twist
Oliver Twist1948.movieposter.jpg
Original theatrical poster
Directed by David Lean
Produced by Ronald Neame
Anthony Havelock-Allan
Written by David Lean
Stanley Haynes
Based on Oliver Twist
1837 novel
by Charles Dickens
Starring Alec Guinness
Robert Newton
Kay Walsh
John Howard Davies
Anthony Newley
Music by Arnold Bax
Cinematography Guy Green
Edited by Jack Harris
Production
company
Distributed by General Film Distributors (UK),
Eagle-Lion, United Artists (USA, 1951)
Release date
30 June 1948 (UK)
Running time
116 minutes (UK)
Country United Kingdom
Language English

Oliver Twist (1948) is the second of David Lean's two film adaptations of Charles Dickens novels. Following the success of his 1946 version of Great Expectations, Lean re-assembled much of the same team for his adaptation of Dickens' 1838 novel, including producers Ronald Neame and Anthony Havelock-Allan, cinematographer Guy Green, designer John Bryan and editor Jack Harris. Lean's then-wife, Kay Walsh, who had collaborated on the screenplay for Great Expectations, played the role of Nancy. John Howard Davies was cast as Oliver, while Alec Guinness portrayed Fagin.

In 1999, the British Film Institute placed it at 46th in its list of the top 100 British films.

A young woman in labour makes her way to a parish workhouse and dies after giving birth to a boy, who is systematically named Oliver Twist (John Howard Davies) by the workhouse authorities. As the years go by, Oliver and the rest of the child inmates suffer from the callous indifference of the officials in charge: beadle Mr. Bumble (Francis L. Sullivan) and matron Mrs. Corney (Mary Clare). At the age of nine, the hungry children draw straws; Oliver loses and has to ask for a second helping of gruel ("Please sir, I want some more").


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