Oliver Twist (1987 film)

Oliver Twist is a 1987 British drama film edited and directed by John Petrie, which was based on the by. Unlike most adaptations, the film is one of the faithful to the source material. Born in a workhouse, the orphan Oliver Twist is sold into apprenticeship with an undertaker. After escaping, Oliver travels to London, where he meets the "Artful Dodger", a member of a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the elderly criminal Fagin. Oliver Twist unromantically portrays the sordid lives of criminals, and exposes the cruel treatment of the many orphans in London in the mid-19th century.

Plot
In the late 1830s, Oliver Twist is born into a life of poverty and misfortune, raised in a workhouse in the fictional town of Mudfog. Around the time of Oliver's ninth birthday, Mr Bumble, the parish beadle, removes Oliver from the baby farm and puts him to work picking and weaving oakum at the main workhouse. One day, the desperately hungry boys decide to draw lots; the loser must ask for another portion of gruel. This task falls to Oliver, who at the next meal comes forward trembling, bowl in hand, and begs the master for gruel with his famous request: "Please, sir, I want some more".

A great uproar ensues. The board of gentlemen who administer the workhouse offer £5 to any person wishing to take on Oliver as an apprentice. Mr Sowerberry, an undertaker employed by the parish, takes Oliver into his service. He treats Oliver better and, because of Oliver's sorrowful countenance, uses him as a mute at children's funerals. Oliver suffers torment at the hands of Noah Claypole, a fellow apprentice and "charity boy" who is jealous of Oliver's promotion, and Charlotte, the Sowerberrys' maidservant, who is in love with Noah. Oliver escapes from the Sowerberrys' house and later decides to run away to London to seek a better life.

Oliver encounters Jack Dawkins, a pickpocket known as the "Artful Dodger", and his sidekick, Charley Bates. The Dodger provides Oliver with a free meal and tells him of a gentleman in London who will "give him lodgings for nothing, and never ask for change". In this way, Oliver falls in with an infamous criminal known as Fagin, who trains the boys as pickpockets.

The Dodger and Charley steal the handkerchief of an old gentleman named Mr Brownlow and promptly flee. Mr. Brownlow sees Oliver running away in fright, and pursues him, thinking he was the thief. Mr Brownlow has second thoughts about the boy. He takes Oliver home and cares for him. As Oliver recovers, Brownlow and his housekeeper notice that Oliver resembles a woman depicted in a portrait hanging in Brownlow's home.

Fagin, fearing Oliver might tell the police about his criminal gang, sends a young woman named Nancy, and her abusive lover, the robber Bill Sikes, to bring Oliver back to Fagin's lair. Fagin forces him to participate in a burglary. The robbery goes wrong, and the people in the house shoot Oliver in his left arm. After being abandoned by Sikes, the wounded Oliver makes it back to the house and ends up under the care of the people he was supposed to rob: Miss Rose and her guardian Mrs. Maylie.

Fagin plots with a mysterious man called "Monks" to find and destroy evidence of Oliver's true parentage. Now ashamed of her role in Oliver's kidnapping and worried for his safety, Nancy tells Rose Maylie, who tells Mr Brownlow. Fagin realizes that Nancy is up to something and sends Noah Claypole, who has joined Fagin's gang, to find out more. Noah discovers Nancy's meeting with Rose Maylie and Mr Brownlow. Fagin passes the information on to Sikes, who beats Nancy to death in a fit of rage. The police and a mob pursue Sikes onto a roof and he dies in a failed attempt to escape.

It is revealed that Monks and Oliver are half-brothers and Monks has been attempting to have Oliver killed so that Monks may inherit their father's fortune. Brownlow asks Oliver to give half his inheritance to Monks to give him a second chance; Oliver is more than happy to comply. Monks moves to "the new world", where he squanders his money, reverts to crime, and dies in prison. Fagin is arrested, tried and condemned to the gallows. On the eve of Fagin's hanging, Oliver, accompanied by Mr Brownlow in an emotional scene, visits Fagin in Newgate Prison, in hope of retrieving papers from Monks. Fagin is lost in a world of his own fear of impending death.

Oliver lives with Mr Brownlow, who adopts him. The Bumbles lose their positions and are reduced to poverty, ending up in the workhouse themselves. All the members of Fagin's gang suffer unhappy endings, except for Charley Bates, who turns against Fagin and becomes an honest citizen, moves to the country, and eventually becomes prosperous.

Cast

 * Percy Brown as – an orphan child whose mother died at his birth; father is dead when Oliver's paternity is revealed.
 * as – a beadle in the parish workhouse where Oliver was born