#32: Oliver Twist
Good morning my babies,
This is my golden newsletter!! It is #32 and I am 32! What a beautiful moment. What a beautiful, invented, meaningless moment. Thank you for being here for me.
P.S. My Christmas tree is still up. Come at me.
#32: Oliver Twist
Director: David Lean
Country: United Kingdom
Year: 1948
Runtime: 116 minutes
Language: English
**As always, this post contains spoilers**
CW: anti-Semitism, domestic abuse, murder, child abuse, death by hanging
Okay, six seconds before we started the movie, Josh asked me, “What if I told you I grew up with a guy named Peanut Shanaberger?” so I was skeptical about my ability to focus on this movie. Happy to report I powered through.
Oh, also! If you want to see this movie for free, it is on YouTube, in full!
We begin with a distraught pregnant woman (Josephine Stuart) caught in a storm. How often do we see pregnant women in old movies? I would totally read a Substack devoted to the portrayal of pregnancy in movies pre-1960.
She arrives at a parish workhouse, which is essentially a place for unemployed people to work and live, run by a church.
She gives birth to a baby boy and then promptly dies because that was just how it was back then, unfortunately. There is an old lady, Mrs. Thingummy (Deidre Doyle), who takes care of the baby after her death. And this Mrs. Thingummy is suspiciously interested in the locket around this mother’s neck. More later!
Nine years later, we learn the boy was named Oliver Twist by the workhouse’s beadle, Mr. Bumble (Francis L. Sullivan). A beadle is just a religious guy who’s in charge of stuff that’s vaguely religious, like the headmaster of this parish workhouse. Given Dickens’ fetish for terrible names (see above: THINGUMMY!!), I am grateful the title character has something as benign yet jazzy as Oliver Twist. The parish workhouse is co-run by the matron, Mrs. Corney (Mary Clare).
This workhouse is a nightmare for children. They work all the time cleaning, it seems, and all the adults are just mean to them for no reason. Why do some people (now and throughout history) just come at kids like they’ve already fucked something up? Like just straight up hateful.
Oliver is brought before some sort of board made up of old White dudes. One of them is wearing a powdered wig but I can’t tell if it’s supposed to be an obvious powdered wig or if it’s just a bad wig.
“I maintain there’s no such thing as a bad wig. Because if it’s bad, it’s actually good.” - Josh Mason, owner of several wigs. Ya know what, I agree.
The board tells Oliver that because he is now 9, he will begin to learn a trade. Because they treated children like somewhere between dogs and adults they hate.
The kids are fed gruel which is just white soup while the adults who work there eat a full meal of meats and meats baked into pies (tell me you’re British without telling me you’re British) while the kids watch from above. The next day, the starving kids draw straws. Oliver draws the shortest straw which means he has to ask for a second helping from a man in knickers holding a switch.
And for THAT trangression, he is advertised for SALE as an apprentice for 5 pounds.
The local undertaker, Mr. Sowerberry (Gibb McLaughlin) arrives at the workhouse with a small metal coffin filled with snuff (which is like tobacco cocaine?) that he shares with Mr Bumble.
Oliver becomes Mr. Sowerberry’s apprentice and moves in with him. They make this kid sleep in the coffin workshop because it turns out Mr Sowerberry also has an Etsy shop selling handmade coffins.
Part of Oliver’s job (all of? I never see him do anything else) as an undertaker’s apprentice is to dress up in a little fancy suit and walk quietly in the funeral procession with a cane.
One day, Miss Thingummy, the old lady who was there when his mother died, shows up at the Sowerberry house looking for Oliver, saying she knew his mother. But she collapses and is taken to the workhouse. Before she dies, she has some TEA to share with Mrs. Corney and 2 random workhouse ladies. Of course she’s a little fuzzy on the details because she’s literally ~*~dying~*~ but she says she nursed a young lady in that room after she gave birth and they would “treat him differently if they would have known” which is vaguebook as hell. Mrs. Corney asks the two other women to leave and she is the only one to hear the rest. She emerges from the room saying Miss Thingummy died before she could say any more. RIGHT.
Back at the nightmare coffin factory, one of Sowerberry’s sons starts talking shit about Oliver’s dead mother. Oliver goes OFF, hitting him and yelling at him. And then everyone is hitting everyone until they throw Oliver in a dark closet. I do not like the term hysterical when referring to women but Mrs. Sowerberry (Kathleen Harrison) is HYS-TER-ICAL. They call Mr. Bumble for backup, who shows up with a switch and says, “It’s not madness, ma’am, it’s meat. If you would have kept the boy off meat this wouldn’t have happened.” Bumble is vegan!
He whips the shit out of Oliver, of course. And can I just say: spanking or hitting children not only doesn’t work, but has outcomes for children that are similar to abuse and please do not do it. If you are interested in seeking alternatives, might I recommend a book? (lol my dad wrote that BUT it’s really good I promise!)
That night, Oliver makes an excellent decision: he takes an apple and a piece of bread and runs away to London! London is outrageous: there are cows and chickens and sheep and a full choir and half an orchestra and every gd person on earth. It’s too much.
A kid a little older than Oliver who goes by the Artful Dodger (Anthony Newley), wearing a tophat, a coat, capris and boots, sees Oliver, identifies him as an orphan and a drifter and takes him by the hand to an apartment to meet his mentor, Fagin.
Anti-Semitism alert: Fagin (played by Alec Guiness in a prosthetic nose) is an old man who trains young orphan boys to be pickpockets. In the book, he is Jewish. The director of this movie, David Lean, says that in the screenplay he is not identified as Jewish so his portrayal and makeup is not anti-Semitic. *eye roll of the century* To this I say: YIKES and BOOOOO. Also, it’s not just me boo-hissing this terrible choice. This movie was banned in Israel, was released heavily edited in the U.S. in 1951 (released in full in the 70s), and was heavily protested in Germany when it was released.
Fagin is super charismatic though and if I were an orphan on the streets of London, I would have loooooved to hang out with this crew.
The next day, Oliver shadows the Artful Dodger as he pickpockets an old rich guy, Mr Brownlow (Henry Stephenson). Unfortunately, Oliver is at the wrong place at the wrong time and even though he didn’t steal anything, he is the one who is chased by an angry mob, knocked out by one of them, and arrested.
Fagin is bummed to learn Oliver was caught. His friend, Bill Sykes (Robert Newton) and Sykes’ girlfriend, Nancy (Kay Walsh), come over to Fagin’s to talk. Fagin and Sykes get Nancy to go to the police station pretending to be Oliver’s sister so they can get him back.
At trial, the judge just yells at Oliver as he stands behind a wooden rail and starts to pass out because he probably has a head injury from getting knocked out by the mob and also he’s been eating corn water for a decade. But! An Irish shopkeeper shows up and says he saw it all and Oliver wasn’t the thief. Mr. Brownlow, who is very sweet (unless he’s not because all the adults in this movie are horrible villains), is very sympathetic to Oliver and takes him home with him to recover.
(Apropos of nothing, Josh just told me that growing up he used to dig up turnips out of peoples’ yards and eat them like apples. What fucking century did he grow up in?)
Nancy sees the whole thing and tells Fagin that Oliver is definitely going to tell on his whole pickpocketing operation. So! He gathers up all his stuff and moves out with his menagerie of kids. I know Fagin is a thief but he might also be a bad guy; stay tuned.
Oliver wakes up in a giant bed with an old lady in a bonnet looking over him, which sounds scary but is actually sweet.
She is Mr. Brownlow’s housekeeper, Mrs. Bedwin (Amy Veness). Oliver is going to recover with Mrs. Bedwin’s “strong broth,” even though Mr. Brownlow has suggested she give him some port wine and I cannot believe anyone survived into the 20th century, I really can’t.
A mysterious man in a top hat named Monks (Ralph Truman) finds Fagin and inquires about Oliver. Fagin sends him to the workhouse. Back at the workhouse, Mrs. Corney and Mr Bumble are in a terrible marriage where they just yell at each other and she beats the shit out of him.
At a bar, Monks finds Bumble and offers him $$ for info about Oliver.
Bumble, knowing his wife got some intel from Miss Thingummy before she died, brings Monks back to their house.
Flashback to Miss Thingummy talking to Mrs. Corney: She tells Mrs. Corney that Oliver’s mother, who had run away from home, gave her the necklace before dying and asked her to tell her father something. But the old lady died first. Out of her palm dropped a scrap of paper. I think it’s info to a sort of safety deposit box that held the locket.
Mrs. Corney shows Monks the locket which has a picture of Oliver’s mother in it. Monks buys it from her for a handful of coins which was either $3 or $3 million.
Y’all, Oliver is having a BLAST at Brownlow’s house. He gets to wear nice little outfits and swing on a swing and and brush his hair and eat solid food and have adults that actually like him. It’s sort of suspicious, to be honest. Also suspicious is there’s a portrait of Brownlow’s daughter on the wall that looks quite a lot like the picture in Oliver’s mother’s locket...
One of Brownlow’s uptight rich friends, Mr. Grimwig (Frederick Lloyd) who lives up to his name, sends Oliver on an errand with a box of expensive books and $$ as a test to see if he’ll return, believing him to be a little thief. On his way, Oliver runs into Nancy and Bill Sykes, Fagin’s friends. Nancy makes a huge scene pretending he’s her little brother who’s run away (there are SO many nosy crowds in these movies omg) and she kidnaps him! They take him back to Fagin, who now officially sucks. Nancy, however, has developed a conscience and is yelling at everyone to let him go but of course they don’t listen.
Meanwhile, the rich people who love Oliver are wringing their hands at home, wondering where he is, save for Brownlow’s friend Grimwig who says “I told ya so.”
Fagin pays the Artful Dodger to tail Nancy because he doesn’t trust her (he shouldn’t) because he thinks she’s probably going to try to save Oliver somehow (she is). While Fagin, Sykes, and Oliver are out, Nancy goes on a walk; the Artful Dodger follows her. She meets with Brownlow, whom she has asked to meet her, after seeing his missing ad for Oliver. She tells Brownlow where Oliver is and that she will bring Oliver to him tomorrow.
The Artful Dodger hears it all and tells Fagin, of course. And Fagin has the Artful Dodger tell Sykes what he heard, including that she named Sykes by name. Sykes loses it, goes to Nancy’s house, and in a truly terrifying and awful scene, he bludgeons her to death.
Turns OUT she didn’t tell on him at all; Fagin deceived him because he knew he would kill Nancy and she was a major threat to his plan of keeping Oliver.
Wanted posters are hung up all over town for Fagin, Sykes, and Monks.
Monks is arrested and taken to Brownlow where we learn the classic Dickensian twist (lol I’ve seen 2 film adaptations of his novels) of secret parentage: Mr. Brownlow is Oliver’s grandpa and Monks is his half-brother!! Oliver and Monks’ father had an affair with Oliver’s mother. Monks was looking for Oliver because he wanted to ensure he would receive all of the inheritance.
Sykes, an extremely wanted man, shows up at Fagin’s house and says they’ll be going down together. An angry mob finds out where they are and shows up with torches. How did more people not catch on fire? How common was death by fire back then, do you think?
As the mob begins to break into Fagin’s place, Sykes, taking Oliver and a bunch of climbing rope with him, takes off over the rooftops to avoid the mob. Oliver climbs a roof while Sykes points a gun at him. In a very dumb move, Sykes puts the rope around his neck as he begins to climb. Someone from the mob shoots him, and he falls, hanging himself.
Oliver is rescued and reunited with his rich grandpappy, Brownlow, and the very nice housekeeper, Mrs. Bedwin.
THE (most anticlimactic) END(ing ever)
I think Oliver Twist brings up some good questions about class and morality. What must people in poverty do to survive in oppressive conditions and how does that color how we see them through a moralistic lens? I will just note that every poor adult in this film was a dick (save for Nancy and she was murdered), and the saviors of the story were two rich people so that message feels loud and clear to me.
Also, it sort of seems like the only way Oliver’s morality could be “saved” was by being rescued and removed from poverty, as though the two are inextricably tied. And unfortunately, this idea of poor people being inherently morally bereft is still a common belief.
ALSO, looking back, Oliver is basically a non-entity; I could not tell you one thing about his personality, which is weird, given the whole movie is named after him. He is a tool used to show which adults are “good” and which adults are “bad” depending on how they treat him. And I dunno, maybe they should start with the man in the mirror.
I mostly enjoyed this dip in the Dickens pool but I am extremely ready to move on. Next up is Nanook of the North, a 1922 silent docudrama about an Inuit family in Canada. Which could be great! But probably gonna be problematic as fuck! See you there!
XOXO,
Steph