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Good start, but then it gets ruined

An Exercise In Nonsense

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

This swirling, memorable adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic novel might have become a classic itself had it been given a half-hour longer to run and fewer subplots to carry. Still, it is an entertaining exemplar of what helped to make Hollywood's Golden Age.After his father's early death, English boy David Copperfield (Freddie Bartholomew) is exposed to various hardships that test him and sort out true friends from false ones. Grown to adulthood, David (now played by Frank Lawton) pursues a career as a writer while looking out for those he loves.The best thing "Copperfield" has going for it is a marvelous range of characters representing (with one major exception) the cream of Hollywood's second-tier players. That exception is W. C. Fields, who plays David's early friend, the forever-in-debt Mr. Micawber. Micawber is not a drinker, and he takes well enough to the boy David, but this is otherwise a role that fits Fields like a glove, and he adds distinction to the proceedings.He's not the most distinctive actor here, nor the funniest. That would probably be Edna Mae Oliver as Betsey Trotwood, a deceptively unaffectionate woman who upbraids her expectant daughter-in-law when she dares suggest her unborn child could be male. "I have a presentiment it will be a girl," she declares, and swats the doctor who delivers news to the contrary. Yet Trotwood is far from disagreeable, as we and David come to understand.Also wonderful are Jessie Ralph as David's warm governess and one constant, Peggotty; Basil Rathbone as the chilly stepfather Murdstone; and Lennox Pawle as the light-headed polestar of Betsey's life, Mr. Dick. Her Tarzan fan base will find Maureen O'Sullivan frightfully overdressed, but she's quite fun as the sexy and completely unserious Dora Spenlow.For half the movie, you also have Bartholomew as David, a child actor who provides an empathetic center to the proceedings. Dickens was a writer of both muscular sentimentality and whimsy, qualities Bartholomew's precocious performance helps bring across here. But the second half of the film is not as lucky with the stick-like Lawton in the title role. Nor is it as engaging, juggling as it does several subplots in often awkward, always foreshortened fashion.One subplot, dealing with David's friend Steerforth and his ruination of a family friend, could have been dispensed with entirely, as it has no bearing on the rest of the story. Director George Cukor seems to lose his balance by letting things get too maudlin."David Copperfield" can't help but be a little twee, being a product of the Victorian Age rendered here into an entertainment for the middle-aged aunties who found Cagney and Gable too uncouth. Poor Freddie spent years unsuccessfully trying to shake the "sissy" image he got stuck with here saying lines like "Ooh, mother, you do look pretty tonight!" Even W. C. has to deal with a tea-cozy aesthetic, exclaiming "Shades of Nicodemus!" instead of his usual, less-genteel "Godfrey Daniels!"I would not recommend this "David" in place of the novel, which is emotionally far more powerful and complex. But for those who have read the book, the movie is a kind of theatrical revue, with some impressively expressionistic cinematography (David awaiting word on his mother's health as lightning flashes across his face; Murdstone's scowling) and pungent readings of familiar lines. All in all, a diverting entertainment that could have done with some pruning but has its heart in the right place.

Producer David O. Selznick gives this version of Charles Dickens' classic "David Copperfield" the red carpet treatment, with MGM employing its considerable resources. It was a guaranteed success, and still serves as a satisfying addendum to the novel. Sharing the lead role are relative (to the rest of the cast) unknowns Freddie Bartholomew and Frank Lawton; they seem enough alike to ease a startling age gap. It's too bad MGM didn't find a mid-period "David" suffer through the missing "boarding school" segments. This film made Mr. Bartholomew an immediate star, with assured performances in the coming years; here, he is obviously learning. Mr. Lawton enters the picture after we've seen Bartholomew for over an hour; thus put in a difficult position, he is anticlimactic.Note the opening credits' "Christmas caroling" subliminally suggesting "David Copperfield" as Christ-like.The film is chock full of illustrious supporting characterizations. There is, however, no "ensemble" acting; characters seem to strut and fret their minutes on the stage, and exit. Sometimes, they seem lost, as there is no overall, unifying style to the acting. Then and now, the most memorable individual segments include W.C. Fields' "Micawber" getting the best of Roland Young (as Uriah Heep), Bartholomew's long walk to Dover, and Edna May Oliver's "Aunt Betsey" wresting control of young "David" from Basil Rathbone (as Murdstone). Despite her lowly placement in the opening credits, the most consistent performance is delivered by Jessie Ralph (as Peggotty); if the Oscar's "Best Supporting Actress" award had started a year earlier, Ms. Ralph might have taken the prize.******** David Copperfield (1/18/35) David O. Selznick : George Cukor ~ Freddie Bartholomew, Frank Lawton, W.C. Fields, Jessie Ralph

I didn't read all the other reviews, but I did read about ten. And never saw the words "child abuse" anywhere. The modern-day reader has Alice Miller and Bruce Perry to turn to. And films like Stephen Frears gut-wrenching "Liam." Dickens wasn't the greatest novelist of his time for no reason. He saw the human condition and reported it =as= he saw it. Here he sees the sadism of the "professional pedagogues" of Calvinistic, mid-Victorian England and how it manifests in the battering of children who, of course, grow up themselves to be sadistic batterers. (Well, =duh=.) He also sees the results in other children."It's good for them. Toughen's them up!" Yeeeah. Well...For anyone who knows the topic, Freddie Bartholomew's portrayal is tough to watch. Bartholomew's face contorts in terror as he is =terrorized= by the monstrous pedagogue, Mr. Murstone, played to the then-contemporary stylistic hilt of viciousness by Basil Rathbone... and again as he forced to drink castor oil and otherwise abused by the great witch-mistress, Margaret Hamilton (or someone who looks greatly like her)."Copperfield" has been made into a feature film three times that I know of. Let's hope it's made three or four more times. In a culture normalized to the "ownership" and "righteous punishment" of "bad" children (never mind =why= they may have become "bad" at the hands of bullies at home and elsewhere in the neighborhood), most people could stand to see this film a dozen times.Thank Irving Thalberg and George Cukor, here. Both had the sensitivity to want to make this important film and do it =well= at a studio that usually wasn't into "social awareness" films, Louis Mayer's MGM.

I was expecting something that captured the time of Dickens and that was well acted. This turned out to be a sentimental look at the times thru rose-colored glasses and most of the actors were chewing the scenery. Almost everyone in the movie was a caricature.During an ocean rescue scene there is no logic at all for anyone to go swimming out to rescue someone, with the wind and surf it would have been impossible to even swim out. Then when they do swim out there seems to be no reason for having done so other then to set up the melodrama. Pretty much everything in the movie is telegraphed so don't expect any surprises.While it has its moments it seems vastly over-rated to me. Not having read the book, perhaps the book is the same way, in which case it's hardly the fault of the movie if it's just following the book. But either way, it was a disappointment. I would never watch it a second time.