Summary: The classic story of the orphaned Oliver who starts his life in the workhouse but who eventually triumphs, despite all efforts to corrupt him.

This installment of the ANIMATED CLASSICS FOR CHILDREN series features OLIVER TWIST, the timeless tale of a young boy making his way along the mean streets of Victorian London.

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If Charles Dickens were alive to see Roman Polanski's faithful adaptation of Oliver Twist, he'd probably give it his stamp of approval. David Lean's celebrated 1948 version of the Dickens classic and Carol Reed's Oscar-winning 1968 musical are more entertaining in some ways, but Polanski's rendition is both painstakingly authentic (with superb cinematography and production design) and deeply rooted in the emotional context of the story. Both Polanski and Dickens had personal experiences similar to those of young Oliver (played here by Barney Clark)--Polanski in the Nazi-occupied ghettos of Poland during World War II, and Dickens during his hard-scrabble youth in Victorian London--and this spiritual kinship lends a certain gravitas to the tale of a tenacious orphan who escaped from indentured servitude in London society and is taken in by Fagin (Ben Kingsley) and his streetwise gang of pickpockets.

As the evil Bill Sykes, who exploits Oliver for his own nefarious needs, Jamie Foreman is no match for Oliver Reed (in the '68 musical) in terms of frightening menace, but even here, Polanski's direction hews closer to Dickens, while the screenplay by Ronald Harwood (who also wrote Polanski's The Pianist) necessarily trims away subplots and characters for the sake of narrative economy. All in all, this Oliver Twistrises above most previous versions, and with the benefit of Kingsley's nuanced performance, Polanski arrives at a compassionate conclusion that captures the essence of Dickens' novel in a way that viewers of all ages will appreciate for many years to come.-- Jeff Shannon

Aspect Ratio:	4:3
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 0
Special Features:	Interactive Menu, Six Scene Selections, Twenty Excerpts From Other Animated Classics For Children
Year:	2002
Release Date:	October 14, 2002
Runtime:	47 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	P E G D V D 4038
Keywords:	General, Oliver, Twist, Childrens
Genre:	Childrens