Judge — March 1935 — page 20: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE MOVIES By PARE LORENTZ HE three biggest productions of the current season have been “David Copperfield”; “Clive of India’ zives of a Bengal Lance By “big” [ mean in terms of money spent for production; advertising and promotion; box-office success; and, m important, critical acclaim, I can understand the success of “David Copperfield” only on the assumption that six or seven million people in. this country are avid readers of the complete works of Charles Dickens. Yet, if that amption is correct, those loyal readers must have been fairly confused at the literary treat- ment of this novel. The England of this motion picture, as you Dickens root- ers must admit, is a fairy-book England, a charming, ice- cream-and-cake Walt Disneyland of thatched cottages, be- flowered highways, and Cinderella coache Once the producers do let us have a glimpse of the Micawber family revelling in a filthy tenement, the ragged, “Hello, Ma! I hear that Pa is working again.” dirty, undernourished children recalling clearly the murky pictures the wor created of the England of his day For one brief moment Master Copperfield is shown at work as an apprentice, with his brutal overseers, his dingy surroundings, and the serf-like condition of labor is hinted at—but no more intimated, than dismissed, as young Cop- perfield immediately goes blithely on his way. We are allowed to recall, for one other brief moment, the brutal property laws of the country, the barbaric debtor laws which sent men into exile or life imprisonment for the lack of a few pence, when we see the ebullient Micawber hustled off to jail. But that is all. MGM's Copperfield lives, for the rest of his screen life, in as charming and fancy a land of vales and privet hedges as the most senti- mental Britisher ever celebrated in song. Of course, it is charming, and it is pleasant to see; my point is, it is not Dickens; it does not even remotely proach the landscape of Dickens, and therefore I can not help but feel that those presumed Dickens readers found the picture disappointing or at least highly inaccurate. lf, on the other hand, the fine acclaim and success of the picture is due to the treatment, the stellar cast, and the direction, I am again puzzled, because there are many inci- “It’s only 35c a quart. Do you two think you could dents, bits of dialogue, and presentation of characters which kill a quart between you?” (Page 30, please) comicbooks.com