Product: Oliver Twist [VHS] (1922)
Rating: 5.0
Alpha's version of the 1922 "Oliver Twist" is great
I was pleasantly surprised to find the Alpha version of the 1922 silent version of "Oliver Twist" done in a first class manner. The picture is excellent, along with the intertitles and background music.After watching brilliant director David Lean's incredible 1948 version of "Oliver Twist," if was hard for me to watch some of the other versions of Dickens' classic tale of survival. However, while I was watching the Jackie Coogan/Lon Chaney 1922 version, it seemed to me that Mr. Lean not only watched this film, but studied it very closely.It also seemed to me that Mr. Lean may have used the 1922 version of "Oliver Twist" as a textbook example for fashioning his own incredible version of "Oliver Twist." Many visual elements in the silent version seemed to have been enhanced and expanded in Mr. Lean's "Oliver Twist."Don't get me wrong, in my opinion, David Lean's 1948 version of "Oliver Twist" is still the greatest film version of the Dickens novel. But the 1922 silent version runs a close second. And the silent version is about half the running time of the 1948 version, but still remains true to the book.Even for those who don't usually care for silent films, I think many viewers will be totally entralled and entertained by this wonderful 1922 version of "Oliver Twist." When the film ended, it left me saying, "Please, sir, I want some more."