David Copperfield

Faithfully filmed, beautifuly acted, delightful cast! Definitely one of the top films of all time! I can't understand why so many trashy films are put out on DVD while some of the very best films are limited to VHS. I love this film but I'm not going to invest any more money on VHS. All the great classics should be cleaned up and put on DVD, including, A Tale of Two Cities (1936), Wuthering Heights(1939), Marie Antoinette, Song of Bernadette, A Christmas Carol(Reginald Owen), Scrooge the musical, with Albert Finney, Meet me in St Louis, No Time For Love, with Claudette Colbert, The Mortal Storm to name a few.

Dickens, with his vast humanity and that amazing vitality of his which created a whole world of characters, contains inexhaustable riches for the screen, though his long rambling plots are the despair of scenerio writers. His people--types, caricatures, or whatever you choose to call them--are distict and individual in appearance, actions and speech--and are rare parts for good actors. The trick in getting Dickens effectively on the screen was an enormously difficult one of selecting and condensing--keeping enough to satisfy the Dickens lover who complains bitterly when any favourite character or episode is left out. Some may find Dickens as being overlong, overly sentimental and often more than a bit tedious; at any rate, however, this is excellent Dickens! Good intentions and imposing ambitions are plentiful enough in the making of movies, but woefully rare are the instances where technical excellence, good taste and judgement and an intelligent sense of the rightness of things combined to bring thowe intentions and ambitions to a successful issue. DAVID COPPERFIELD is one of those rare and happy successes. It met every reasonable expectation competently and generously, and the film was highly praised by the critics and public alike back in 1935. This filmed version of the classic novel by Dickens, is remarkably faithful to the source - rich in atmosphere and fine characterisations. David himself is played ideally by both Freddie Bartholomew and Frank Lawton; they miraculously seem to be the same person at different ages! If Frank Lawton seems less interesting, its only because his adventures are so mild compared with those of Bartholomew. W.C. Fields' whole career seemed to have been a preparation for his role as Micawber; he is magnificent in his off-beat role. Edna May Oliver and Jessie Ralph give flawless pictures of Betsey Trotwood and Peggotty. The black villainy of the Murstones is done in just the right spirit by Basil Rathbone and Violet Kembell Cooper while Roland Young makes you actually feel the dampness of Uriah Heap's hands! The film is a splendid picture-book of the novel, custom made for those who admire the splendid novel by Dickens.

So exclaimed one of my friends who had never before seen Freddie Bartholomew, one of the best child actors Hollywood ever produced. Freddie turns in an excellent young David, and it's a pity that the adult David is such an unremarkable figure. That's one reason, I think, why Roland Young's Uriah Heep and Maureen O'Sullavan's Dora are so impressed upon viewers' memories in the later scenes : they have no competition from a strong lead. Still, the first half of this movie is really what carries it, and what everyone thinks of when they conjure up images from the film. Selznick and Cukor did an admirable job of selecting a cast as idiosyncratic as Dickens' creations have to be: WC Fields' ever-hopeful bankrupt Mr. Micawber, Basil Rathbone's sneering stepfather Mr. Murdstone, Edna May Oliver's totally absurd Aunt Betsey Trotwood. It's true, of course, that much of the novel had to be deleted in order to make the movie an acceptable theatrical running time, but the cutting is done well so that the audience does not sense that something is missing from the storyline. If, like my friend, you've never seen the marvel that was Freddie Bartholomew, I urge you to watch "David Copperfield" with your family and friends, preferably at Christmastime.