A Canonical Dickens Crossover: Master Humphrey's Clock

Here is something that over Dickens fans may have noticed, but I had not. There appears to be at least one canonical crossover or "shared universe" fiction in the Dickens canon. Accordng to my friend Jeff Bloomfield on deviantart:




As a matter of fact Dickens did (once) have a cross-over (and by the way, I don't recall Mr. Brownlow being mentioned in "Bleak House" - I would have noticed that). I mentioned that Dickens (in 1840) had started a new work, "Master Humphrey's Clock" that had a bunch of friends visiting Master Humphrey each month, and one would entertain the others with a story. In this book Dickens brought back Samuel Pickwick, Sam Weller, and Toby Weller as members of the group, and Pickwick and the older Weller tell some of the stories. The series never really made it. Dickens started a story in it about a little girl and her foolish grandfather who get mired in debt to a nasty money-lending dwarf, and slowly it expanded beyond a short story and became "The Old Curiosity Shop". When he ends that tragic novel (poor Nell), Dickens returns to Master Humphrey's Shop to reveal that it was Nell's grand uncle who was telling of the tragedy. That was the last we heard of Master Humphrey's Clock. The next book was "Barnaby Rudge" which was longer than "The Old Curiosity Shop".


That's something to keep in mind in regard to the upcoming BBC series the Dickensian, which has characters from all of Dickens' novels inhabiting the same "universe."

Dickens and Mass Culture and Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist: A Sourcebook, by Juliet John

 These are two very excellent scholarly works about Dickens which have come into my possession within the past year. Oliver Twist: A Sourcebook, of course deals with that story in particular, mostly the myriad of stage and screen versions ever since the publication of the novel. Dickens and Mass culture is on a broader topic, but contains and excellent short chapter on Oliver Twist in the popular imagination, titled "The Making of a Cultural Myth: Oliver Twist on Screen."

    Unlike some other critics, (and to an extent, perhaps myself as well), John is generally uncritical of the deviations from the canoncal test found in the myriad of film versions. Since Oliver Twist exists as what she refers to as a "culture text," the events in Oliver's life do not really have a set pattern, and are therefore fluid as they are interpreted by changing times and culture in which the medium of film exist. Indeed, as she points out, people who have never read the book, think they know the story, something even more true of A Christmas Carol. I don't doubt that there are plety of those who think that Scrooge visited the Crachits on Christmas Day, even though, strictly according to canon, he didn't.Oliver is a bit more problematic  though, since due to the time constraints of some versions, the rich novel must be pruned for an abreviated time slot.

    John's acanonical approach to the text, however, allows room for the numerous divergent interpretations, such as Oliver asking for more gruel out of his selfless compassion for another starving boy, as in 1982's film, or as a direct protest against the system, as in the 2007 one. Approaching the story as a cultural myth, allows both versions, and others, a greater degree of legitimatecy. In a mythic sense, Oliver's request may be seen as a protest and/or a demand by all impoverished children, both within the era when Dickens wrote, and beyond.

     Again appraoching Oliver's story as mythic and fluid, John is accepting, and even appreciative ,of the diverse interpretations of Fagin that have shown up over the years, especially it seems, of the less conventional ones such as Timothy Spall's take on the character.

     She also points out that one of the earlier silent versions set the stage for subsequent versions, as to what scenes from the book were kept in and left out. Among the scenes that have become a staple for most adapters are Oliver's asking for more gruel (of course!), Oliver's meeting with the Artful Dodger, Oliver's introduction to Fagin's lair, and Dodger and Charlie picking Mr. Brownlow's pocket with Oliver getting blamed. With Oliver  having become a cultural myth, those scenes are the ones most impressed upon the collective concsiousness. Similarly, that early version's ommissions were also copied, and John lists several canonical indicents/characters that seldom show up on screen. "It is very rare," she tells us, "to encounter little Dick on screen, or see Fagin and Monks appearing at the window at Maylies, or Oliver reading the Newgate calendar, or the trial of Fagin, though these scenes do appear on occasion."

     Dick, Oliver's starving workhouse friend, does appear in the 1982's version (Goldman's script gives him the vital role of the boy for whom Oliver asks for more gruel), as does the scene where Monks and Fagin peer in the window at Oliver. Fagin's trial appears appears in the 2007 version, and (surprisingly), in the Filmation cartoon; perhaps some space should have been giving to the cartoons, for are they not, too, part of culture? Fred Guida does consider the various animated Carols, along with the rest. I can't recall a version offhand that has Oliver reading the newgate calender.

    John does mention, however, that 1982's Oliver is the only version she's aware of that makes mention of the 'New Poor Laws,' what Dickens wrote the novel to protest against. That occurs in the scene where Bumble thunders at Oliver about the infallibility of the system, though it occured to me that this refence might be cinematically unique.

   Though I haven't seen quite all of them (the 1962 version still escapes me, and likely will for some time),  one scene I'm fairly certain has never been filmed even in BBC's meticulous production in 1985 (which even included Gamfield, the chimney sweep), is the incident with the raving hunchback in chapter 32. This is probably because the incident makes no sense in the context of the plot, and would be an even more obvious loose end if presented onscreen.

     The final chapter in John's Mass Culture examines "Dickens World," an amusement-park like attraction in Britain, in which visitors can see and interact with live actors portraying the characters from Dickens' novels:Fagin, Scrooge, Miss Havishham, et. al. There are verying opinions as to whether such an attaction is good or bad by Dickens buffs; on one hand it preserves the legacy of Dickens' stories and and characters, and (perhaps) introducies them to new generations. On the other, it s seems to cheapen Dickens' legacy by turning them into fodder for the masses. If, however, Dickens' works exist as "culture texts," the public imagination is the medium in which they continue to persist. There is, indeed, a tendacy to devalue mass popularity and consumption as cheapness. That is, in fact, often not the case, as Dickens most popular works are arguably also his best, a case that I beleive Juliet John makes well in these texts.

The Many Versions of Oliver Twist (How do they compare with Clive Donner's Version?)

An iconic scene, but notice the camera cord?

Way back in 1982, Newsday critic Harriet Van Horne wrote, "why, when TV has access to a vast treasury of literature that has never been dramatized, why another go-round with "Oliver Twist"? And if Dickens is called for, why not his last brooding tale, "The Mystery of Edwin Drood"? It's just possible that audiences have had their fill of plucky little Oliver and his bowl of gruel."

    The original article may be found here:

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1243&dat=19820319&id=CYdTAAAAIBAJ&sjid=roYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5628,1741921&hl=en

    She goes on to write how "most of us cherish memories of the 1948 Oliver, and we're still singing tunes from the Lionel Bart musical."

   And, of course, she had a point bout Edwin Drood, and still does, in spite of a fairly recent BBC adaptation.

    But back then, then I never even new the story at all. I'd say I'd never heard of Oliver Twist, back in the eighth grade in 1982, save for small advertisement for a cartoon version the previous year. Technically, was not the movie itself that I was aware of: it was the teleplay in Scholastic Scope, a mag for Junior High (now Middle School) age kids that I was introduced to it, one week before it aired.


    I never even knew there were other versions, let alone a musical! A musical based on such a story as this, about a ill-treated starving waif was difficult even to imagine when I first heard it. I'd heard strains from "Consider Yourself" back in sixth grade choir, and "Food, Glorious Food!", but I never knew what they were from.

    This version, was of course THE version. But nowadays, with a whole other generation growing up, there are likely fans of the story out there who have their own, more recent, cinematic Olivers, and for them, 1982's Twist (AND the ones proceeding it) just don't register that much.

   That's right: if 1982's Oliver Twist seemed like an unnecessary re-hash to the older generation of OT fans back then, what do they think now? It wasn't just this single critic that voiced the opinion, it question of whether a new Oliver was necessary was even discussed and defended by the filmmaker's themselves. Producer William F. Storke came to the film's defense, saying "I don't think once every thirty-five years is too much. When the 10th version of Oliver Twist shows up in 2017, it'll have a long way to go to beat what we saw in 1982."

    I agree. As I type this, we're not quite there yet, but once again irony rears its head. Storke, director Clive Donner, and screenwriter James Goldman, the three men who made 1982's Twist what it was, have sadly passed away. But Oliver Twist has already been filmed a total of a total of five times since then, and that's not even counting the animated versions and one pastiche.


     OT is the second favorite Dickens tale for filmmakers after A Christmas Carol, and actually I am indeed curious as to why, as the story itself does not seem to be gaining popularity. Scrooge's story will, I'm certain remain timeless. With Oliver, I'm a bit less certain. But I digress. Here are the adaptations, not counting the stage versions and other obscurities before the advent of film.

    There were some earlier silent versions, most or all featuring girls in the role of Oliver, but I've never seen any of them, which makes the first one...


1922

This version, featuring Jackie Coogan as Oliver and Lon Channey as Fagin is actually quite a bit more true to the source material than the much heralded 1948 version. Unlike most versions to follow, the entire plot of the novel is intact, including both Oliver's early rescue by Brownlow from the magistrate Fang, and the burglary at Maylie's. Reportedly, the young actor was frightened by Lon Chaney's appearance in make-up, and ran screaming!

1933

This version is not a favorite with critic or fans, and frankly, I don't much care for it myself. Oliver is too young, the Artful Dodger is too old, and they totally eliminate the Sowerberry incident, and Oliver's fight with Noah Claypole.

1948

This is the version, starring Alec Guiness as Fagin, John Howard Davies as Oliver, directed by David Lean, that is most often believed to be definitive of all versions, before or since. I don't really see why--not that it isn't good.

It was infamously banned in Germany following protests by Jewish groups; watching the film itself; Guiness's overly stereotypically facial makeup make him a virtually a racial caricature--much, sad to say, the way Dickens himself wrote him in the first place. And they leave in the scene in which Fagin infamously thrashes Oliver. Most subsequent version eliminate it, and also try to "correct" the stereotype perpetuated by both Dickens original and Lean's version.

But that's not why I can't see it as definitive. Lean's version totally eliminates the burglary scene, and thus the Maylie family and Oliver's aunt, along with many very important scenes.

He also includes a climactic scene (for better or worse), in which the fleeing Bill Sikes kidnaps Oliver and uses him as a hostage. This fabricated incident has shown up in subsequent versions. It seems to me that if anyone threatens Oliver at the end, it really should be Monks, trying to accomplish physically what he was unsuccessful in doing by manipulating others.

Probably the film's greatest asset is that John Howard Davies actually resembles a child who has been starved half his life. His face just naturally has an emaciated look; this is in marked contrast to the other onscreen Olivers, most of whom look too healthy for a boy raised in a workhouse on watery gruel.


1962




This little-known and hardly recognized version ran on the BBC in 1962, reportedly shot in black and white, and is possibly the version that is most true to the  book, far more so than the much heralded 1948 version. I've never seen it, but recently a petition ran to release this on DVD, which sadly didn't seem to have garnered enough votes.

 https://www.change.org/p/british-broadcasting-corporation-bbc-release-the-1962-serialisation-of-oliver-twist-onto-dvd

Leaves no characters out? This one would be well worth seeing. Strangely enough, Bruce Prochnik, the boy who plays Oliver in this, was also the title role for the original Broadway production of Oliver! Hard to believe, but it seems to be true.



Oliver! (1968)

Lionel Bart's 1968 muscial version seems to the one most people are familiar with, often the first they encountered the story. This film was released some years following the Broadway production, the first showing in London's West End, and the show has been reproduced many times since. It is a huge, rollicking production, vibrant with music and song, which also means it isn't very true to the book. Emphasis is given to the Artful Dodger's rogueish charm, and Ron Moody turned Fagin into a lovable old coot. Dickens wanted to get away from the glamorization of crime, which was prevelent in the popular novels of Jack Sheppard, a real life "heroic" rogue. While most of OT's baddies are intentionally morally repugnant, Dodger, it must be said has a bit of charisma lacking in the rest, which has made him a popular character ever since, possibly more so because of this film. Dickens may have realized that Dodger was problematic for this reason, and that may be why he essentially wrote him out of the story, and concentrated on the more evil characters. And since Dickens essentially left has character's story untold, pastiche writers have enjoyed speculating on what adventures he might have had, both in the colonies, and if he returned to London.
 
     That's fine and good if you're a fan of the Dodger. But as for the movie Oliver!, it goes almost in exactly the opposite direction then the book, so far as emphasizing the ugly reality of London's underworld. The movie also follows Lean's version in having Brownlow turn out to be Oliver's grandfather, and eliminating Oliver's aunt. But unlike in that film, Monks is entirely absent, strange since he's such an important part of the story.


1982 


Somehow, I think











Clive Donner, who directed 1982's Oliver Twist , also happened to have been assistant director to Lean's 1948 version. When it came to filming his own version, he told reporter's that, "I didn't worry about the impression that filmgoers may have retained from David Lean's production. What I had to fight was the more recent memory of the musical version of Oliver." Donner said the musical had a "Christmas card look," and that "I purposefully chose to film many scenes in browns and mudcolors. The tale is a dark one, and I had to preserve the mood if the tale was going to work with proper impact."

    Donner also told the press that there were other areas of the film that Lean's version did not touch, and that his new film set out to explore. That's all true, but at the same time Donner's film suffered from the same mishap as had Lean's: it was shoehorned into a measly two-hour space. While Lean's supposedly definitive version eliminates the burglary at Maylie's, Donner's version goes the opposite route, and eliminates entirely Oliver's rescue by Mr. Brownlow, and his recapture by the thieves. As it is, the protagonist's adventures are cut almost in half. But while the plot remains significantly wanting, this version is spot-on when it comes to the darkness of Dickens' original vision.

   The script, written by James Goldman (who also penned the scripts for Nicholas and Alexandra and The Lion in Winter) also has Brownlow and Rose sharing the same estate, a trend that would be followed in subsequent versions, and makes Rose Brownlow's niece, thus by implication, Brownlow is Oliver's great uncle. The role of Monks is actually emphasized in this version. The murder of Nancy by Sikes is graphic and heart-rending, nearly as much as in the novelnitself. This is reportedly also true of the near-mythic 1962 version (which reprotedly generated contorversy because of it), though with most versions, this scene takes place behind closed doors.

      "Oliver is a rebel," said Donner. "He stands up for what he believes is right despite the consequences." Unlike in the book, and other previous versions, Goldman's script has Oliver willfully asking for more gruel for another starving boy, rather than the boys drawing straws and Oliver losing. This is very notable, making 1982's Oliver a creation of Donner of Goldman, based on Dickens's original character; the book's Oliver demonstrated passive resistance, but strident rebellion, as he does in this poignant scene. Producer William F. Storke, opined that actor Richard Charles had the "sickly and saintly" look that he was was searching for. I can't argue with that. 





1985



 It's notable that a mere three years following Donner's adaptation, another version appeared, once again by the BBC, as in 1962. It's also noteworthy for the only version to have two actors playing both a younger, and slighter older Oliver. I was already used to 1982's version when this first aired, but it must be said that it is meticulously true to the plot of the book, even to excess, as were almost all BBC versions around this time. John O'Conner, critic of the New York Times observed, accurately, that this was a closer to Dickens version than most, and that Fagin, portrayed here by Eric Porter, is "more or less as Dickens wrote him: Fagin is Jewish and he's a villain."

You can read that review here:

http://www.nytimes.com/1986/01/07/arts/a-closer-to-dickens-oliver-twist.html

     O'Conner had previously criticized 1982's Oliver, mainly focusing on George C. Scott's Fagin, whom he called "sanitized." The more sympathetic Fagin played by Scott was recently defended in "Please Sir, i Want Some More: Clive Donner's Marxist Verison of Oliver Twist."

https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1P3-2193255371/please-sir-i-want-some-more-clive-donner-s-marxist
  
It it also worthy of note that Lysette Anthony played Agnes Fleming, Oliver's mother in the opening sequences of both 1982 and 1985 versions!

 

1997






  
Back in the good old early days of the Disney, they broadcast a number of excellent movies, like Dune (the extended cut), My Fair Lady, and such Dickens-inspired tales as The Whipping Boy and Wolves of Willoughby Chase, and the 1982 version of Oliver Twist with George C. Scott and Richard Charles. This last certainly went well with the mix, even though it seemed too dark for the Disney channel, especially the death of Nancy. Oddly enough, none of these films were Disney, but heck, I watched them all, and nothing at all on Disney interested me after they changed to what might be more accurately titled "Teen Central."
   But in 1997, Disney made their own official version of Twist, and, rather predictably, it's considerably less dark than most previous versions or its source material. Deviations from the book abound. Most striking early on is the absence of Bumble, the only such absence I'm aware of. The Sowerberry incident is (as I recall) left out as well. As with 1982, Brownlow and Rose share the same estate, though in this case both Oliver's recapture and the burglary are there, though this time the burglary is successful. Fagin is adaquely played by Richard Dreyfess, though he's certainly less evil than in the book. He also survives until the end, and Oliver even gives him a grateful hug. Strangely,  the scene in which Fagin beats Oliver after his recapture is left in. This version has an overall lighthearted feel to it, almost like the musical, with Dodger telling Oliver about the fun, rollicking life as as a thief, even refering to Newgate as "the great institution of higher learning." It's full of other thieves--get it?
     Another deviation is having Oliver "stealing" his mother's locket from the workhouse matron; one might consider that a strike against Oliver's moral character, but I disagree. It's the workhouse matron who's the real thief; Oliver is merely taking back what's rightfully his.


1999

The 1999 version is distinctive for first providing a back story, in which we actually get to see Oliver's mother, and how she met and fell in love with Leeford, later to be betrayed. This is both good and bad; its good that we get to see this background firsthand for those curious about the background details of the story;  but not so good, in that for those not yet familiar with the story, there's no mystery to solve as far as Oliver's parentage is concerned. A relationship between Monks and his mother is introduced to the plot, something a bit unnecessary, which has led some to complain that this version ought to be called "monks and his mother." Fagin is portrayed as a East European conjurur, which if he were of Eastern European Jewish origin, he might well have been.


2005






This version, Filmed by Roman Polanski, and staring Barney Clark as Oliver, was the first version to be shown on the big screen since 1968's Oliver! , at least in the US (1982's version was shown in the UK in London's West End and then in Europe). This version includes both Oliver's rescue and recpature, and the later burglary at Maylie's. It was shot in Romania, which the director reportedly thought resembled Dickens' London than modern London did. Somehow I get the notion that the Dodger has led a troubled life in this one, and his character is better for it.
 
Surprisingly, this version includes Toby Crackit, Bill Sikes' s partner in crime during the burglary, a character that seldom seems to make it on screen.



2007
 

















This is yet another BBC production of OT, this one deviating from the book far more than the others. The recent trend at the BBC is make their Dickens adaptations edgy and almost modern. The soundtrack to this quite jarring and doesn't fit the story very well. Fagin is played by Timothy Spall (most know as Peter "Wormtail" Pettigrew from the Harry Potter movies), who briefly appeared as a constable at Dodger's trial back in 1982! His is quite possibly the least Fagin-like of Fagins to come down the pike. This is mostly in his appearance; George Scott was a large healthy man, unlike Dickens's "old shriveled Jew"; Spall is positively rotund. If Scott made Fagin more sympathetic than Dickens had, Spall''s take on the character is even more so. His Jewishness is emphasized, including his religous aversion to pork. At Fagin's trial, he is even bribed by judge Fang into converting to Christianity, which he refuses. This film aslo features the films first ethnic Nancy. The director, in the DVD's "making of " feature, said the she is seeing White actors in these roles, so this casting seems done far more out of fairness than accuracy. It is possible, that Nancy could have been a black woman in Victorian London; it just isn't very likely.
    But the greatest deviation here is the character of Monks, who is portrayed as the grandson of Brownlow. He is also  probably the most oily, hypocritical, and loathsome version of the character to date. That's fine , save that Brownlow's character suffers as a result, as Monks is shown to have gotten hold of the old man's ear, and manipulating him into distrusting Oliver, and forcing Rose to marry him. This is a far cry from the book, and certainly Micheal Hordern's portrayal, in which Brownlow serves as the sleuth who deciphers Oliver's parentage and brings Monks to justice.
    This version also follows the trend set in 1982, with Rose as Brownlow's niece. Also like Donner's version, Oliver asks for more on his own gumption. In fact, this Oliver is even more defiant; you can tell in the "more" scene, that he is actively making a protest. When taken before the workhouse board, Oliver actually chastizes Limpkins and other board members, who are shown stuffing themselves. This is one gutsy Oliver! I'll submit that 1982's Oliver was actually the most heroic, in that you could see that he was terrified when he took his friend's bowl up---but he forced himself to do it anyway. As Donner said, he did what was right.
    Then, again, I'm biased. Oliver's defiance of Limpkins in 2007 was arguably better than 1982, as Oliver is basically passive in that scene.

Animated Versions

There's been a number of these, most of them fairly cheap, nothing on par with the best of Disney, unless you count Oliver and Company, which I don't. Here are those that I've actually seen.


Unknown, Australian Company


This is a version that was par of a series of animated Charles Dickens tales, produced in Australia and also included A Christmas Carol,Nicholas Nicholby, and Great Expectations. It was made in 1982 or around the time, so note the resemblence on the cover to 1982's Oliver. It's the same (I think) as one that's been released on DVD more recently.

 Filmation


This is the one that holds a special place in my memory because it is the literally the very first time I ever knew of the story's existence or the name "Oliver Twist" at all. One day I just happened to chance on this ad in TV guide back in April of 1981. Uncanny, a bit, that the confused looking, wide-eyed waif in the picture should somewhat resemble the lad holding out a soup-bowl on the cover of Scholastic Scope, nearly a year later. Before then, virtually all I associated with the name 'Charles Dickens' was Scrooge, and I sometimes wondered if he'd written anything besides. I'd read the scope issue on A Tale of Two Cities just a month of so earlier, and seen part of the TV movie. "A brave orphan caught in the clutches of thieves?" I'd never heard of that before. Now I knew of three stories he wrote. I never saw the cartoon, curiously enough, since I had so much else on my mind in those days, until much later.
   Filmation was best known back then for producing kid's shows for Saturday morning, before the advent of cable channels. The company was second only to Hanna Barbera in output. Their take on Oliver was a muscical, but it featured all-new numbers totally different from Oliver! , the Broadway muscial and 1968 movie.These were sung by Larry Storch and Davey Jones, popular musicians of the 60s and 70s. The story is true enough to the source material, but like Lean's Oliver which seems to have set a trend, it leaves Rose maylie, Oliver's aunt, totally out (though it does include a botched burglary--Sikes leaves Oliver in a ditch after he's shot, and Nancy rescues him). Since Filmation had a way of including cute animal sidekicks, Oliver has a pet toad he calls squeaker, who he rescues and they become fast friends.

Saban's Oliver Twist 

This was an animated Oliver series made in the early nineties around the time I was in college. It took place in an alternate animated London populated by both anthropomorphic animals and humans. Oliver is a puppy, Dodger is a rabbit (or hare), Charley Bates is a gluttonous pig (literally), Fagin a wise old fox. Nancy is also a fox (as in the animal). I can't recall what Bill Sykes was, as he appeared very infrequently. I never paid this show much attention back then, though I vaguely knew it existed. I've since seen some of the episodes on youtube. The animation is pretty cheesy--no surprise. Since it's a series, it can't really follow the story, though the premier episode does have Oliver asking for more. Fagin's gang are Oliver's pals and mentors, pretty much. Also, in this version Oliver's mother is still alive, and most of the episodes involve his and the gang's efforts to find her.


Pastiche Versions

There have been a number of Oliver Twist pastiches, almost all of which feature the Dodger as a (if not the) main character, most of which are print, but a few of which are film versions.




Oliver and the Artful Dodger (1972)



This Hanna-Barbera produced this animated pastiche originally aired in 1972, as an entry of The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie, a show that featured a different special cartoon every week (some of which were try-outs for series). There was the premiere for Filmation's Brady Kids, a Banana Splits cartoon/liveaction feature by HB, an animated  Lost in Space , an animated Munsters, and more. I didn't actually know of this cartoon until much later. The show has a number of things going for it. The plot has Mr. Brownlow dying, and his wicked nephew, Mr. Sniperly (a good Dickensian name!) seeking to claim Brownlow's will (and Oliver's inheretence) for his own. It's up to a reformed Dodger, and his gang of urchins to recover the will, which is hidden in the drawer of a piece of furniture. That's an intriguing plot, but it bothered me how untrue to the canon it is. Throughout is the implication that Oliver will be sent back to the workhouse if the will is not recovered. Why wouldn't Oliver just go live with his aunt? There was no way they could send him back, once they knew who he really was. This seems to be more of a sequel to the musical than to anything else, and that version, like some others, eliminates Oliver's aunt entirely. Oliver wasn't just a foundling that Brownlow happened to take in, and this story seems to assume this. Also, like the musical, there are songs throughout, though I didn't find them very memorable, unlike both Oliver! and the Filmation cartoon.




The Further Adventures of Oliver Twist (1981)




This is an obscure TV serial made back in 1981. It has never been released on VHS or DVD, though some Brit kids remember it airing as a kind of after school special back then. I did however, manage to get the book on ebay some years ago. It's not bad. Dodger escapes being sent to the colonies, and somehow ends up at the same public school to which Oliver has been sent by his guardian, Mr. Brownlow, run by a Wackford Squeer-like headmaster. Monks and Noah Claypole both return to make trouble for Oliver. The writers are taking some liberty here, because Monks was sent to prison in the original, and later left for America. Oliver and Dodger find themselves on the streets once again, and eventually meet up with Fagin, who we learn has managed to escape the gallows. Oliver regains his fortune, and the villains are put in their place. The story has a rather satisfying fate for Claypole in particular, who ends up getting thrown in a cell with a criminal he has peached on. I always thought that Dickens let Claypole off too easily.;Oliver may break his nose in an earlier scene, but the Sowerberrys and Bumble take his side, and he eventually gains a fairly satisfying life as an informer.


Escape Of The Artful Dodger 



 This pastiche goes the other route by following Dodger's adventures in Australia (how many readers have wondered about that?), only Oliver is sent to learn a trade on the same ship transporting Dodger by Mr. Brownlow. There is some Dickens mash-up going on in this, as two characters from David Copperfield turn up, Mr. Micawber and (an older than he should be) Uriah Heep. Fagin turns up in Australia as well, and this time, I'm not sure there's a credible explanation for him being alive. Early on, Dodger runs across a man who seems to be a young Charles Dickens. Some liberties have indeed been taken, as Brownlow is Oliver's grandfather, a noncanonical trend starting way back with David Lean's version and the musical. New characters are introduced, including female members of an Australian gang of street children.



     And that's about it, so far as screen versions of Oliver Twist are concerned.

   Has there ever truly been a definitive version? Possibly not. I'd like to defend 1982's Twist as being such, but it isn't, really. No so much because of George C. Scott's overly sweet, Amercanized Fagin (where most critics seem to place the blame), but because so much of the story is left out.

   If Oliver Twist is indeed ever made on film again, whether in 2017 or afterward, what approach should they take? Well, as far as Fagin (the role that gets talked about most), they should have no problem with him being a bad guy; his Jewishness need not be overemphasized. As others have pointed out, Monks and Sikes are far worse, not only in subsequent film versions, but in the original as well.

   More problematic is (or should be) finding a new boy to play Oliver. An actor with a heart-wrenching expression that outdoes that of  1982's Oliver would be very hard to find, I imagine.

    The script should follow the book. Some have disagreed a bit on this, but to have the substance of Dciksn, the film should run at least four hours. It need not be as stretched out as most Dickesn adaptations were back in the eighties. Had 1982's Oliver run for two nights rather than one, the length would have been fine. Two hours was plenty to do justice to 1984's Christmas Carol, also directed by Donner and starring George Scott; Oliver not so much.

   As far as acting skill, an ideal Oliver should be able to vocalize his actual lines in the text--something that, to date, I don't think has really been done. None of the on-screen Olivers has vocalized the character's pathos, though that's likely the fault of the script than the actual children playing Oliver. For example compare the following:

1982's Oliver: (Sikes is about to put him through the window): "Oh please don't make me do this Mr. Sikes! Please don't!"


Oliver from the Book:"Oh! for God's sake let me go!" cried Oliver; "let me run away and die in the fields. I will never come near London; never, never! Oh! pray have mercy on me, and do not make me steal. For the love of all the bright Angels that rest in Heaven, have mercy upon me!"


   Find an actor who can recite the above with that degree of Shakespearean pathos,  in a heartrending soprano voice, and also be terribly believable (not to mention ascript that follows the book),  and a perhaps real definitive version of the tale just might be a possibility.

Dickens and Poe

The 1976 BBC Masterpiece Theatre production Dickens of London, was on while I was still a small child, and I was unaware of it until as a young adult, I came across overage of it in a book chronicling the Masterpiece Theatre productions. It wasn't until the early 2000s that I actually got a copy, after it had been re-released in the US on DVD.

 
 
      As I anticipated, it is an excellent production, with separate actors protraying the author as a boy, a young man, and (both) a middle-aged man, and an old man. The film faithfully follows the life of Dickens from his boyhood to his deathbed. There was another biographical portrait of Dickens broadcast sometime this new century on PBS, which I taped. There were actors portraying Dickens parents and contemporaries in that as well (including Timothy West as Dickens father), but that was not a straightforward dramatazation of the author's life. This version is. The life of Dickens dramatized, making the film seem like the life of one of Dickens characters, and could stand alongside the adventures of David Copperfield, Oliver Twist or Phillip Pirrip. Only this boy really lived and some of what he endured was the equal of the hadships his fictional characters went through. There seem to be less evil adults here than in his novels (though I suspect that there were in young Charles' life), but young bullies are well represented. The actor who protrays the elder Dickens makes him a jovial, flamboyant merry-maker, and relentless optimist. That's probaly fairly close to reality, as Dickens claims to have based David Coppperfield's Mr. Mcawber on his father. The incidents of Charles' family ending up in depter's prison, and the Blacking Factory are well-presented. There's plenty of darkness in this, including a harrowing scene in which two accost young Charles in Warren's Blacking Factory and pour boiling shoe polish on him. The later incidents of Charles' affair with a young actress, and the accident on the train are not included here, BTW.

The episodes flash back and forward from the author's boyhood and youth to his elder years. There are some disconcerting incodents, including one with a man who is made up to resemble Mr. Pickwick, barges in to Dickens' sickbed to have word with the auhtor, and the doctor throughs him out. The elderly author reflects, "Am I dreaming of him, or is he dreaming of me?"

    This scene and others beg the question as to how much of all this is faithful to the author's life and how much is fictionalized. And this brings me to the point of this essay, which happens to be Dickens and Poe, what I set to write out in the first place. Later in the serial, there is an episode titled "Nightmare," which is clearly based on the real-life incident in which Dickens met with Edgar Allen Poe in America.
    
 

    This occurred during Dickens first tour of the continental US, which would shrotly inspire him to write Martin Cuzzlewit(not his most popular work, particularly not with Americans). Both authors knew and  admired one another's work by this time. Poe reportedly urged Dickens to find a Birtish publisher for his Tales of Grotesque and Arabesque. Dickens promised he would, but was apparently unable to do so. Did Dickens fudge on his promise? Probably he did his best to find a publisher, but one wonders if the outcome of his meeting with Poe could have been influenced by the bizarre incident in "Nightmare"--if it occurred at all, that is.

   In the film, Poe lets Dickens in on a secret of his: he had discovered a way to find out what lies beyond the grave. Poe tells Dickens that he has been experimenting with hynosis, and has managed to drug a man into a hypnotic state at the moment of his death, so that his consciousness (spirit), is in a suspended state, caught between the world of the living and the dead. Naturally, Dickens is intrigued by this (remember, Dickens was an amateur magician himself, and also experimented with hypnosis--not to mention he was reputed to have been a member of London's "Ghost Club"), and he accompanies Poe to the house where the man in question is sprawled out on a bed in a darkned room. Poe demands that the man tell them what lies beyond this world, whereupon he pulls back the linen covers. The body, which has been in suspended "life for 7 months, collapses into a dired skeleton. Horrified, Dickens flees, with Poe's vampirish laughter ringing in his ears.

     Any truth to this? And if so, is it a trick devised by Poe or a real-life paranormal incident?

Nicholas Nickleby (1980)

  I recieved the entire set of Nicholas Nickleby the Christmas before last. It was on old VHS tapes, not DVDS. It's been ages since I've actually read the novel. It has been even longer than that since I've seen some of this adaptation, possibly the most celebrated one ever of Dickens' third novel. It was put on by the Royal Shakespeare company back in the eighties.

    I remember when this was telvised in 1982, on ABC, I think. I was in ninth grade at the time. My English teacher had us read Great Expections that year, the first time I'd had to read a lengthy Dickens novel. I remember her assigning extra credit to anyone who would watch the Nicholas Nickleby serial and do a special report on it. I saw just a bit of it, and it seemed very dark, but that's the way Dickens' adaptations often are. What I most remember though, is my mom absolutely hating it, due mostly to the darkness, and some of the violence going on. However, we didn't really see enough to make any judgement of the series as whole, especially considering it's length.


     Now that I've finally watched it from beginning to end (and knowing the story), I can safely say that it lives up to all the hype it recieved back then. While some Dickens adaptations of the time cut corners and leave out imprtant characters and events, that is certainly not the case. It's all here--Nicholas's confronation with the sadistic Wackford Squeers, the Cheeryble Brothers, the Vile Mulberry Hawk, Smike's tragic death, the horrible realization that prompts Ralph Nickleby's suicide, everything. The scene in which Nicholas thrashes Squeers is memorable, and appears especially orchastrated here to have the audience cheering.
 

    The approach this adaptation employs here is a bit unorthodox, or at least it seems so for as a film adaptation. Before each subsequent act, the performers give monologues to the audience in regard to the events. Thus, we get the sensation of the people on stage transforming from actor to character, and back again. As a film, this can be a bit disconcerting, but the adaptation does manage to work both as a film and a play. This is literally a film of the play (caught live on camera it spooled out on the London stage).  And though the sets change throughout the performance, they are convincing enough to work on film, as though shot in the gloom-shrouded steeets of Victorian London--well, nearly. The atmosphere in this production is indeed quite dark, as it should be, and we don't see too much that would reveal itself as stagey during the actual scenes.

 

    On a final note, actor Roger Rees, who has the title role, also played Scrooge's nephew Fred 1984's A Christmas Carol. He's who I always pictured as Nicholas, thanks to this performance--in spite of the fact that I'd not the seen but very little of the performance before now.

Hard Times (1977)

I just recently got to purchase and view the 1977 adaptation of Hard Times. I remember reading the original novel back in college. It was for a course in Victorian literature. As a rule, most college courses tended to avoid the longer works by authors, given the time allowed in a semester, and that rules out virtually all of Dickens. Hard Times, however is a realtively slim novel. It is basically a scalding comentary on the rise of industrialization at the time, in particular the small, industrial towns that were popping up in the north of England over the past few decades. The novel is to be beleived, these industrialized "progressive" villages were dominated by crushing uniformy, terrible working conditions, and mass exploitation of impoverished laborers. The story takes place in fictional Coketown, and centers around the ruthlessly materialistic schoolmaster Thomas Gradgrind, who discourages all flights of "fancy" in his pupils, and his friend, the blustering, "self-made man" Josiah Bounderby, who is later revealed to be a fraud. It is a satire on extreme ultalitarinism, which Gradgrind pounds into his students, and imposes upon his own children. Part of the tragedy of the tale is that Gradgrind, at least, seems to be well-meaning in this, and seems to realize his error after the damage has taken effect.

     Back when I first read this, I pictured Bounderby as looking like Mr. Bumble from Oliver Twist--in fact, like Timothy West's portrayl of the character in 1982.  So it seems pretty appropriate here that he is actually played by Timothy West,  And so he is. It's almost as though he's playing the same character. He's so gross and hypocritical, its quite a relief when he finally gets what's coming to him.

     Also in this version, the city of Coketown is itself very well portrayed. With smoke stacks belching forth vile chemicals, it very much resmebles the city in the book. We didn't really see any of the city itself in the more recent adaptation by the BBC, as I recall, although I would recomend the DVD of that as well, in part becuase that version also includes a short film of Dickens' often anthologized ghost story "The Signal Man" as an added bonus. Bitzer, Gradgrind star pupil, is protrayed as a very pale albino boy in the 1977 version, unlike in the BBC version, but the same as in the novel. This is important, as Bitzer's paleness was a metaphor for the bland "colorless" school of thought Gradgrind imposed on his students.

Where is "The Haunted Man"?

Charles Dickens' novella, The Haunted Man and The Ghost's Bargain presents an enigma in that it has not been adapted so much as once as a screen or even a known stage production since the nineteenth century. That's right---Dickens' ghostly tale of a gloomy chemistry teacher named Redlaw, haunted by wrongs done to him in the past, who encounters his ghostly double on Christmas eve has yet even to be filmed. Contrast that with the story of Scrooge, with more adaptations on screen and stage (not to mention parodies, animated, and sticom version, etc) than any other Dickens work bar none. Mention the name "Scrooge", and anyone will know the character. It would be very difficult ot find someone familiar with Redlaw's tale.

     The species of phantom Redlaw encounters, a duplicate of himself, is known to folklore as a "fetch". The phantom doppleganger is staple in paranormal literature. One also features in Edgar Allen Poe's short story "William Wilson."

    Dickens' Haunted Man was the last of his Christmas stories, which he began publishing annually following A Christmas Carol's roaring success, the previous ones being The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, adn the Battle For Life. Of these, only The Chimes was another ghost story, about phantoms that haunt the bell tower, though it took place on New Year's Eve rather than Christmas. The protagonist of The Haunted Man, which, like Carol, occurs on Christmas proper, is so morbid about past wrongs (I think there's many who can relate to him), that he accepts the phantom's offer to obliberate all his unpleasant memories. The phantom's "gift," has unforseen consequences, as Redlaw becomes unable to express a loving nature--be becomes merely bitter and quarrelsome. Worse, his affliction spreads to others around him. The loving Swidger family and Tetterby family become...not so nice. It is only an innocent child character, Milly Swidger, who, because she remains uneffected by the affliction, is able to save Redlaw. the chemist recounts his bargain with the ghost, and all is restored to right and good by the end. The message hear, delivered in the final line by Milly Swidger, is that even painful memories of our past must be preserved in order for love and joy to exist in the present. That message, and the story itself, did not manage to resonate nearly as deeply with the collective human psyche as A Christmas Carol did. Still, the story seems to have been fairly popular on the stage following its publication. The story also includes a heavy dose of social criticsim of the times, just as in Carol and Chimes: at one point Redlaw encounters a half-wild "beast child," a sort of equivelent of Carol's Ignorance and Want.
 
     The reasons for its utter disapearance following the Victorian era remain unclear. Fred Guida, in his book A Christmas Carol and its Adaptations, relates that records show that one of the early stage adaptations featured a "flying ghost" onstage, and a later one was the first presentation of the "Pepper's Ghost" effect, very innovative for the time, in which the ghostly image of a human actor was projected onto the stage via a light projector, and through a pane of glass situated between the stage and audience. The effect was pioneered by polytechnic Henry Dirks, and presented on the stage by another polytechnic, John Henry Pepper, hence the name.

 


Whatever the reason, dispite its early popularity, it's obvious by now that the story of Scrooge managed to totally eclipse that of Redlaw. I think it's time The Haunted Man was given its due on screen. Come to think of it George C. Scott might well have made a formidable Redlaw just as he did Scrooge. Scott was very good at depicting complex, conflicted characters in his movies. It's a pity he's no loger with us.

Here is an illustration of the fetch from the story:







 And some interesting illustrations for The Chimes: