I can hear your groans from here, “Oh no, she’s reviewing another oldie!!” and yes I am, and I don’t care!!!!!
You’ve all heard it said that the oldies are the best!!
This review is of David Lean’s 1948 adaption of ‘Oliver Twist’, the restored DVD released in 2008. (ASIN: B001AJ34C6)

Although only at the beginning of his illustrious career, Lean had already directed ‘In Which We Serve’ (1942) and ‘Brief Encounter’ (1945). He had also earned an Oscar nomination for his direction of another Dickens book - ‘Great Expectations’ (1946).
In fact, it was in filming ‘Great Expectations’ that Lean had introduced Alec Guinness to film and also where he first worked with the talented cinematographer Guy Green.

I don’t think that there is any need to go into too much detail about ‘Oliver Twist’, there can be very few people who do not know the story.

Oliver Twist was an early Dickens work, and it was a work with Dickens at this best trying to publicise the insufficient provision that was made for the poor in England's 19th-century workhouses. Dickens wrote with some experience as in 1823, his father spent a year in debtors prison and Charles had to support himself working in a dye warehouse, not terribly unlike Oliver Twist's experience in the workhouse

Personally I thought that the casting and acting was superb, with almost every role standing out as being so good.
Perhaps an exception was John Howard Davies who played Oliver, he played the part well enough, but both he and Lean were really stuck with the rather bland character by Dickens himself.
In the same ilk, Henry Stephenson, in the role of Oliver's grandfather Mr. Brownlow, is proficient but easily forgotten; and as for the novel's other sickeningly sweet and ‘wonderful’ members of Brownlow's family that Dickens created - Lean was sensible enough to leave them out altogether.

The most controversial role in the film was that of Fagin, described by Dickens a ‘the old Jew’, he is the brains behind Bill Sykes' criminal gang and the young pick pockets.
When the book was written Dickens himself had come in for some criticism for anti-Semitism (so yes there was a PC culture even then!!), and Lean was worried about casting the character; Alec Guinness asked for a screen test and won the role. Jewish groups still protested against this aspect of the film, and certainly Lean's decision to give Guinness a long "Jewish" hook-nose didn't help matters. But anyone who has watched this film cannot possibly imagine any other character playing the role of Fagin – so perfect was Guiness’ role. (Hard to believe that Guiness was only then 22 years old).

Then there was the imposing Bill Sykes, wonderfully and unforgettably played by Robert Newton he was purely amazing.

Cast
Robert Newton - Bill Sikes
Alec Guinness - Fagin
Kay Walsh - Nancy
Francis L. Sullivan - Mr. Bumble
Henry Stephenson - Mr. Brownlow
Mary Clare - Mrs. Corney
John Howard Davies - Oliver Twist
Josephine Stuart - Oliver's Mother
Henry Edwards - Police Official
Ralph Truman - Monk
Anthony Newley - The Artful Dodger
Hattie Jacques - Singer
Kenneth Downey - Workhouse Master
Kathleen Harrison - Mrs. Sowerberry
Gibb McLaughlin - Mr. Sowerberry
Maurice Denham - Chief of Police

The film starts bleakly and dramatically as, through a violent storm, we see a ghostly figure of a young woman, no more than a girl,staggering along road and getting weaker with every step.
Thunder begins to roll ominously to heighten her fate, and lightning flashes in the sky behind her head, revealing the pain in her face. With the last of her strength she falls at the front door of a workhouse - where she gives birth to a baby boy – Oliver – before dying.
This scene is not in the book but it makes a wonderful gothic and intense start to the film, and I for one think that Dickens would have loved it

=== DVD ===

I LOVED it !!!!!
Loved it, loved it, loved it!!!