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David Copperfield

1970, Movie, NR, 118 mins

David Copperfield: Review

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Putting this version of DAVID COPPERFIELD next to Cukor's 1935 classic makes you realize how two separate teams can take the same material and go so far afield. Phillips is the 28-year-old Copperfield telling the story in flashback. He recalls his schoolmasters (played amusingly by Olivier and Attenborough) and the rest of his life, but the story is so jerkily put together that the flashbacks jar the eyes and brain. Characters omitted from the 1935 version (Traddles and Quinion) appear in this version, but the addition means less time for Micawber and Peggoty and many of the others. Screenwriter Pulman, who wrote so well for the BBC's "I, Claudius," was off the mark in his adaptation of Dickens' novel. The plot is detailed in the other review (1935) and doesn't vary much here. It is in the special touches that this version falls apart. Moody is much too obvious as Heep and so is James Donald as Murdstone. This picture, released in the theaters only in countries other than the US, was essentially made for television. Perhaps producer Brogger and the network that financed it thought the story had to be simplified and laid out so the unsophisticated TV audience would understand. When will they learn? leave a comment
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