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DAVID COPPERFIELD
Production: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Direction: George Cukor. Adaptation: Hugh Walpole. Screen play: Howard Estabrook. Photography: Oliver T. Marsh. With W. C. Fields, Freddie Bartholomew, Frank Lawton and others. Length: 11,726 feet. GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Production: Universal. Direction: Stuart Walker. Scenario: Gladys linger. Photography: George Robinson. With Phillips Holmes, Henry Hull, Jane Wyatt. Length: 8,788 feet. THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD
Production: Universal. Direction: Stuart Walker. Scenario: John L. Balderston and Gladys Unger. Photography: George Robinson. With Claude Rains, Heather Angel. Length: 7,670 feet. THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP
Production: British International Pictures. Direction: Thomas Bentley. Adaptation: Margaret Kennedy. Photography: Claude Friese-Greene . Art Direction: Cedric Dawe. With Hay Petrie, Elaine Benson, Reginald Pur dell. Length: 9,500 feet.
It is interesting to speculate on the motives which induced the moviemakers of Hollywood and Elstree to embark almost simultaneously on screen versions of Dickens novels. Dickens would appear to exercise a fatal fascination over the minds of production executives. Perhaps it is that they share with him the delusion that he could write strong stories.
The impetus which set the latest cycle in motion may be ascribed to the popularity of films with an English background ; and to the demand, stimulated by what Viertel amusingly calls the "chastity campaign," for films to which Poppa can take Momma and Junior. When one examines the Dickensian philosophy, deriving as much from the innate goodness of the man as from the Victorian disposition to set God above the Devil, it is not really surprising that producers should so often have gone back to Dickens for their screen material. In Dickens the Steerforths and Heeps come to a bad end, the Doras and the Little Nells are translated from this sad world to a better, the Pickwicks and the Pips, whatever their temporary embarrassments, earn their just meed of happiness in the final chapter. Virtue is rewarded and vice punished — which is exactly the comfortable code that has informed picture-making since the earliest days of the movies. Whether it squares with the facts or not is no matter; it suits the vested interests of filmdom that the public which lines up at the box office should be put to sleep with that opiate and persuaded to accept a false standard of values. That is not to suggest that Dickens was dishonest. He had the good fortune to see the world as a place so arranged that the Quilps reap what they sow. Nor must
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