Oliver Twist (1948 Film) - Differences From The Novel

Differences From The Novel

While in general faithful to the Dickens storyline, Lean's film omits the Rose Maylie sub-plot altogether. Instead, while Oliver is forced by Sikes to help him burgle a house, Nancy goes directly to Mr. Brownlow to warn him of the plot against the boy, and Fagin dispatches the Artful Dodger instead of Noah Claypole (who appears only in the early scenes) to spy on her. It is also Dodger, and not Charley Bates, who angrily gives up Sikes to the police. (He suffers remorse after discovering Nancy's dead body and realizing he has been an unintentional party to her murder.) Oliver returns safely from the burglary with Sikes, rather than being accidentally shot during the break-in. Nancy's best friend, Bet, is also omitted from this film. As in the later musical version, Nancy plans to return Oliver to Brownlow on London Bridge; however, she plans on doing so at noon instead of midnight (she intends to drug Sikes with laudanum, something she does not do in the musical). But in the David Lean film, she never even begins to set her plan in motion, because she is found out and murdered beforehand.

The boy dying of consumption and malnourishment in the workhouse, Dick, never appears in the film.

Unlike the novel, in which Nancy meets Oliver the day after he arrives at Fagin's and her sympathy for the boy is implied early in the story, she and Oliver do not even meet in the film until she helps to kidnap the boy; and although she defends him from Fagin's anger after the kidnapping, Oliver seems to still be unaware of any real concern she may have for him until late in the film, when he leaves with Sikes to commit the burglary. While wrapping a scarf around Oliver's neck prior to his leaving, she momentarily touches his cheek to silently reassure him, and he looks back at her in surprise as Sikes pushes him out the door. Unlike the novel, the musical, or many other film versions, Oliver is never shown displaying any feelings for Nancy one way or the other.

Agnes Fleming, Oliver's mother, is turned in the screenplay into Brownlow's daughter, rather than simply the paramour of Oliver's father.

Fagin's trial is not shown in the film, and his hanging is left unmentioned. Unlike the previous 1933 American film version, the 1948 film omits the scene with a semi-hysterical Fagin in his prison cell, awaiting his execution.

Oliver's father is never mentioned at all in the film, while in the book he was Mr. Brownlow's best friend.

Although the film includes the character of Monks, Oliver's half-brother, it is never explained in the script that Monks is the half-brother at all. He seems to be merely a mysterious stranger who turns up to make trouble for Oliver. The one clue to his identity is furnished when he says to Brownlow, "Is this a trick to deprive me of my inheritance?", and Brownlow replies "You have no inheritance, for as you know, my daughter had the child!" The terms of the will left by Oliver's father—that Oliver would be disinherited if he ever committed a criminal act—are also left unexplained.