Customer Reviews

David Copperfield

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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.

Charles Dickens, like Jane Austen, is a 19th Century writer whose stories translate very well to the cinema. It is because of the strength of the characters and the fact that most of the stories have a happy ending and the baddies end up properly punished.

David Copperfield, while somewhat faded in the physical quality of the video itself, as a film is a perfect example. It's full of wonderful character actors who seem to be having the times of their lives in their parts.

Basil Rathbone is at his villanest, as the evil stepfather, Mr. Murdstone. Roland Young is particularly effective as the slimey Uriah Heep. And the great W.C. Fields personifies the always hopeful Mr. Micawber. Dickens would have loved his interpretation of the wonderful mountebank.

The only clinker in the whole cast is Freddie Bartholomew, who often comes across as a whiney twit. I'm sure Fields would have liked to have given him a kick in the pants, like he did Baby LeRoy in The Old-Fashioned Way.

I recommend the film heartily for young and old. You will certainly recognize the same virtues and vices in people you see today. Unfortunately, good and evil nowadays don't always result in the same outcomes as in Charles Dicken's time.

When you've finished this film, move on to Great Expectations with Alec Guiness, Jean Simmons and John Mills; Oliver Twist with Alec Guiness, Robert Newton and Anthony Newley and A Christmas Carol with Alastair Sim. If you aren't dripping with good will and cheer by then, let's face it you're either dead or Scrooged.

Happy Holidays!

There are so many adaptations of Charles Dickens, but many of them in and after the 1950s are actually made for television like BBC mini-series. The golden era of the Dickens FILMs was the 1930s and 40s, when David Lean's `Great Expectations' and `Oliver Twist' were produced in England. Before these classics, however, Hollywood also made two great films based on Dickens in the same year from the same studio: MGM's 1935 version of `Tale of Two Cities' and `David Copperfield.'

George Cukor's `David Copperfield' respectfully treats the immortal characters Dickens created. The original's plot was never changed drastically, and you still feel that this is a Hollywood film - Hollywood in the 1930s when the name of producer David O. Selznick appears on the screen AFTER the director's name. Then the film shows a book cover, and someone slowly turns over the page. No one makes films like this today

The film starts with the delightful turn of Edna May Oliver as Aunt Betsy Trotwood, one of the juiciest roles in this film, and she never disappoints us. Beautiful Elizabeth Allan (then on contract to MGM, also seen in `Tale of Two Cities') effectively plays the young mother of David, too young and maybe foolish. Basil Rathbone as chilling Murdstone makes a great contrast with her sunny personality that is destroyed by his cold heart.

Cukor's `David Copperfield' is usually associated with W. C. Fields's Mr. Micawber, which is surely convincing and funny without overacting, but as I have pointed out, there are so many good actors besides Fields (who actually replaced Charles Laughton after the shooting had started). MGM's studio system sometimes damaged the career of the talented actors such as Buster Keaton who was often miscast during his MGM era, but as far as `David Copperfield' is concerned, every player is put in right place. Watch angelic Maureen O'Sullivan as the endearing and doomed heroine Dora, and you know what I mean. Well, I want more Lionel Barrymore and Elisa Lanchester, but I admit the film is near perfect.

Of course nobody is perfect, and so is George Cukor. No matter how he tries, the film's location never looks authentic, and at one scene an obviously painted backdrop stands for the city of London. By today's standard this is unacceptable, but as I said, no one makes films like this today. Enjoy the world of Dickens, and Hollywood when it was making real Hollywood films.

When Warners announced that the original nitrate camera negative had been found for George Cukor's 1935 DAVID COPPERFIELD and that it would digitally remaster the film for DVD, I was delighted. However, the results are so disappointing that I really doubt any restoration was ever even attempted.

The print on display here is in pretty wretched condition, with a plethora of marks, scratches and other blemishes on almost every frame. True, this is a 70 year old film, and one must make allowances - but if the original negative WAS available, then much could have been done to minimise the damage of time and restore the image.

I think that Warners didn't want to spend the money, which may explain why the DVD slipcase makes no mention of digital remastering or original negatives at all...!

What a great pity and a missed opportunity.

One of the major problems that any Hollywood director faces in transferring Dickens from the printed page is selectively deleting extraneous plot and character so that Dicken's original vision can be encompassed within a two hour time frame. In DAVID COPPERFIELD, director George Cuckor succeeds admirably in catching the flavor of a vast panorama of characters and subplots without losing Dickens' sense of horror at the then widespread brutalization of children. The result was a richly deserved nomination for Best Picture of 1935
David is played in the first half by Freddie Bartholemew, and in the second by Frank Lawton. David is a sweet, unassuming boy who loves his doting mother to the point that the audience early can guess that his happiness is soon to be blighted by nasty adults, the most insidious of whom is Mr. Murdstone, whose rapid sense of diction is matched only by his ability to use that diction as a precursor to pummeling David. David is thoroughly traumatized by Murdstone's sadistic comments such as, "David, do you know how I break a horse? I beat him." And all the while the audience is screaming for his mother to intervene and throw out this bum of a husband. But she does not, and David's debasement continues until her death when Murdstone inherits her property and banishes David to live with distant relatives. In many of Dickens' novels, he portrays women as falling into one of two categories: the sweet but essentially helpless women who are no more able to control their lives than a young David is able to control his. His mother and Dora (Maureen O'Sullivan) whom he later marries are typical. The other kind of woman is the rompin stompin in your face female played by Edna May Oliver, who steals the movie as Aunt Betsy, who stands as a rock of refuge for the tormented David. It is she who drives away the hated Murdstone, who comes to reclaim the runaway David.

The first half of the movie is far more of interest than the second. It is almost as if Dickens used up most of his creative juices in delineating the character of a David whose youthful helplessness far exceeds the interest generated by Frank Lawton, who plays David more as wimpish Phillip Carey from OF HUMAN BONDAGE than the introverted but tormented Heathcliffe from WUTHERING HEIGHTS. The second half drags as David attempts to sort out the women in his life. He marries the child-woman Dora, only to rage against a childishness that he should have spotted long before their marriage. Equally unbelievable is his one-sided relation with Agnes (Madge Evans), who somehow falls in love with the articulate but socially fumbling David. Both halves of the movie are carried by the extraordinary talents of the supporting cast. Edna May Oliver's loud voice and broomstrokes mark her as a stalwart defender of youthful innocence. W. C. Fields as Micawber adds comedy and pathos in a gravely base voice as only he can. Roland Young makes the most of his screen time as the weasily and slimy Uriah Heap whose 'Umbleness' tagline stamps him as yet another unforgettable Dickens creation. By movie's end, the audience can see that Dickens did not believe in the fairy tale happy ending. Sometimes the bad guys (like Murdstone) got away with their villainy. And sometimes (like Heep) they did not. The Dickens of both book and screen both agree that life is most often a gamble, but if one has true grit and a loud protective female presence somewhere in the background, then all might turn out well. Sort of like real life.

Cukor's sensitive, ennobling version of this Dickens classic was sumptuously produced for the big screen by producing titan David O. Selznick. A box-office smash when it was released in 1935, "Copperfield" is eminently faithful to the spirit of the Victorian-era novel, tracing the hardships of Bartholomew's orphan hero as he bounces from home to home in search of a real family. Oliver, Rathbone, Maureen O'Sullivan, and Lionel Barrymore are all superb in their respective roles, while Fields musters up an unforgettably charming mix of eccentricity and warmth as Micawber, a role he seemed born to play. Roll out the welcome mat for "David Copperfield."

Just a quick note... W.C Fields was a huge Dicken's fan, if you will. Due to that respect of his work, this is the ONLY film that W.C. Fields did that he never once ad libbed, he played it straight.

1939 has often been touted as the peak of Hollywood's Golden Era. While I would not argue with that (Ted Sennett wrote a whole book about it), 1935 was a Sterling year for American movies also. All the studios turned out fine films that year: "The Little Colonel" and "The Littlest Rebel" at 20th Century-Fox, "Top Hat" and "The Informer" at RKO, "The Ruggles of Red Gap" and "Lives of a Bengal Lancer" at Paramount, "Bride of Frankenstein" at Universal, "The Whole Town's Talking" at Columbia, "Call of the Wild" at United Artists, "Gold Diggers of 1935" and "Captain Blood" at Warner Brothers, and at MGM, "A Night at the Opera", "Naughty Marietta", "Anna Karenina", "Mutiny on the Bounty", "A Tale of Two Cities" and "David Copperfield" (whew!)

David Copperfield is deservedly one of the outstanding pictures of 1935 or any other year! I definitely have to agree with Charles Dickens himself, when he said "Of all my books, I like this the best". And of all the Dickens' books adapted to the screen, I like this one the best, and I bet he would have been pleased, too.

The film has many pleasures: the outstanding cast (of whom Freddie Bartholomew as young David, Edna May Oliver as Aunt Betsy Trotwood, and W.C. Fields as Mr. Micawber, stand out), the well-written screenplay by Howard Estabrook and Hugh Walpole (why drag a story out for five or six hours and multiple parts, when you can tell it well in two or three hours?), the expert direction of George Cukor, and the period flavor.

But perhaps the reason it is SO good is the genius that was David O. Selznick. He pulled all the parts together to make a thoroughly satisfying whole with a brillent skill that would reach it peak four years later with "Gone with the Wind". The production has "class" stamped all over it, and this was due to Mr. Selznick. We will never see his like in Hollywood again. What a shame.

I highly recommend this film. The use of the English language (have your dictionary ready) by WC Field as Mr. Micawber is worth the price of DVD in and of itself. Buy it to-day! While I'm at it, you'd be wise to watch and/or buy most any movie produced by David O. Selznick (Google his name, you will find a list). He knew how to draw you into a film and entertain you with a great story!

I think Charles Dickens would have enjoyed this film version of his book. Yes, much of the dark troubled times of David's young years were not given much detail. But given the limited time of the film, I think a good job was done. W.C. Fields is so unforgettable as Wilkins Micawber and the rest of the cast is equally wonderful. My only "complaint" is that this film is not yet on DVD. Let's get with it film industry! These are the films that must be preserved!
For those of you who doubt that this film, and films like it, has value for the youger generation I would say that films like this are an example of a great AMERICAN ART FORM. Perhaps it is a good thing in this hyper tech. age, not to laugh off these black and white images from our past, but rather take the time traveling experience to be in that other world for a short time. Perhaps a better appreciation of our culture, past and present,will be felt. R.A.M.

Out of all the movies I've seen made from Dickens novels this is the one that most truly represents the characters of David Copperfield. It is a bringing together of some of the finest character actors that ever graced the screen. Any Dickens fan will love this version. W.C.Fields was born to play Mr.Micawber. Edna May Oliver was created to play Dickens.