I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

"Oliver Twist" the novel rests at top of mind for the general public when it comes to Charles Dickens. Dickens wrote better novels, so why is "Oliver" so magisterial in his canon? Maybe I'm at fault for not liking the book more, but I suspect the answer has much to do with David Lean.Lean's adaptation of "Oliver Twist" is a textbook example of how a director can boil away the dross and bring out the core of a great story, adhering to the spirit of the author's intent but rediscovering it as a product of its place and time in a way that makes it timeless. The Expressionistic camera-work, its deep-focus lens pulling out details from a seemingly slapdash set, married to an unobtrusive yet penetrating score and a variety of brilliant character actors lending face and voice to a true group effort. It's like "Citizen Kane" meets Hogarth.When we first meet Oliver, he is inside his dying mother as she makes her painful way to a solitary light on a hill, a light that proves more ominous as she gets closer. Her painful journey is later made light of by one of Oliver's first enemies, a beadle named Bumble who sees her strength and bravery as exposing an animal nature that allows for his mistreatment of her son. "God Is Love" says the message on the brick wall of Oliver's workhouse, but there is no love for the boy in the first third of the film, a harrowing journey for any sensitive viewer to make.Francis L. Sullivan plays Bumble, an actor who gives the best performance in Lean's earlier Dickens movie, "Great Expectations." He's quite fine here playing quite a different role, both menacing and funny, but other actors make even deeper impressions.Alec Guinness gives his breakout performance here as Fagin, the crafty thief and seducer of virtue. Yes, Fagin as written by Dickens is also known as "the Jew," and with his big prosthetic nose Guinness plays with that stereotype more than a bit, but he also gets at the core of Dickens' villain by using that to accentuate his role as the consummate outsider, finding diabolical angles in a world where he is not welcome. Guinness was such a cerebral actor that it's hard to adjust to the feral nature of his performance here, except it makes the part and thus the movie.Fagin is a frightening villain, as is first-billed Robert Newton as the crazed Sikes, because we get the fear at the core of their villainy. Dickens wrote "Oliver Twist" not as adventure story but social exposé of his native London, a cruel city of dire poverty and no second chances. Seeing young Oliver (John Howard Davies) at its mercies is no easy thing, and we realize how Fagin and Sikes are products of that society. Watching them face a mob bent on their comeuppance is both thrilling and horrifying, because we know by then how cruel their world is.When the undertaker Sowerberry (Gibb McLaughlin) complains to Bumble early on about the small price given for his services to the workhouse, Bumble just smiles: "So are the coffins!" How he can smile at such a thing is harder to reckon than any of Fagin or Sikes' awful crimes.Being plunged into such a world, one wants for the relief Oliver first finds, than loses, with kindly Mr. Brownlow (Henry Stephenson). Much streamlining is called for here, and aptly done by Lean and co- screenwriter Stanley Haynes. Ditching a maudlin subplot involving a young woman Oliver befriends named Rose Maylie is a stroke of genius given how little she is missed. More problematic is the matter of Oliver's mysterious stalker, Mr. Monks, who does show up here but in a way that raises more questions than answers.Could Oliver have been better incorporated into the film's second half? Howard Davies does great with what he's given, and I for one wanted more. But I think what you do get is pretty classic in its own right, a finale that ranks up there with the best filmdom has ever offered.You will want to read the book after seeing the movie, if you haven't already. And you will likely admire it, as I do, for its humanity and bracing power. Still, for getting across both Dickens' story and its underlying social commentary, no one, not even Dickens himself, did as good a job as Lean and company do here.

I can't believe that only one person in the review section, and no one in the message board section has commented on the magic of the film score for OT. Arnold Bax, the composer, was one of England's greatest composers, and this was the only film he scored, even though he was asked to do others. Perhaps the fact that people didn't even notice the music, yet enjoyed the tone and mood of the film is a reflection on how well the score worked. In any event, I saw this film when I was a kid back in the 60s, and it's amazing how so much of it has stayed with me after all these years. I never even realized that it was AG who played Fagin till I saw the credits! The last scenes of the entire city rampaging through London to hunt down Bill Sykes was wild! I think it may have caused me to imagine that something like that should happen to a certain corrupt leader of NYC...The scene with the dog was much more powerful than showing the actual violence that was going on. Excellent film making.

As already said, this version of 'Oliver Twist' is more loyal to the time when it took place, being more authentic than other versions (many versions exist). I don't know what the other versions are like, but they can't be as bad as 'Oliver & Company' by Disney, which is a completely modified concept of this story with artwork that can only be classified as a disgrace.This is one of the great-looking B & W films and it has great sceneries too. The film is generally well-made and directed. John Howard Davies alone takes the whole thing. This charismatic English child-actor is so overlooked. Even if he did very few movie roles, he deserved more popularity thanks to his natural-born talent and charm. Here he has a very moving acting as the lead character, Oliver Twist. You really care about Oliver, he's such a good kid and goes through so many bad things that you can say he practically loses his childhood - that is, he isn't given the happy childhood he should have had and deserved. But at least there is a happy ending waiting for this sweetie.Robert Newton's acting as Bill Sikes is great, although his best performance is probably as Long John Silver in Disney's "Treasure Island". Here he obviously's got his two legs. Robert Newton was a charismatic but ill-fated actor due to his lack of reliability and problems with the booze.

I can't even believe there are people who prefer this narrative jalopy to Lean's infinitely finer 'Great Expectations.' Oliver Twist is simpleton fodder. The waif protagonist is NOT interesting. He is acted upon, and actions occur around him because having a child protagonist is essentially uninteresting and problematic. Because he's so helpless and feeble (read: virtuous), nothing complex can happen to him without introducing some adult agents. Any danger Oliver experiences, lost its threat 50 years ago from over-familiarity. Every Dickens story involves illegitimacy and tiresome coincidences. OT features the biggest whopper of a coincidence in all of Dickens oeuvre: Imagine you're an orphan who doesn't know who your parents are. Imagine yourself lost in a massive city. Imagine the first person you steal from, just happens to be your long-lost grandfather. Oh come on... what a hideous, clumsy, amateurish device. Bill Sikes is one dimensional. Nancy's motives shift inexplicably. I found nothing interesting in this non-complex plot from the very first viewing. Only Great Expectations miraculously escaped Dickens tiresome, facile morality. The only reason this receives three stars is for the dramatic b/w camera work.