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David Copperfield Movie Review

David Copperfield is a 1935 drama film directed by George Cukor and starring W. C. Fields and Freddie Bartholomew. It’s a solid, but standard book adaptation.

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“Boy, as I have frequently had occasion to observe,

When the stomach is empty, the spirits are low“

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What I mean by that is that this is very much a book in its feel. This famous Charles Dickens novel is given a cinematic life, and more on that later, but in terms of storytelling itself, it does not fit the movie narrative at all, and I could see that it was a book almost in its every moment.

That’s because the movie is an overlong, slow, dialogue-heavy and character-rich drama which works in its charms, but it lacked in terms of momentum and memorable cinema moments. I personally really enjoyed the first half of this film which is very interesting, charming and so well executed across the board, but the second half ruined all of that for me as it resorted to too much dialogue, too many characters and not enough memorable plot points.

Let’s talk about the actors who are also a mixed bag. Some of them are great, but some aren’t so good in my opinion. Most of the women in the film were grating and not particularly good actresses and Freddie Bartholomew himself is more annoying than truly endearing, but there is no denying the power of W. C. Fields’ performance which is so strong, and he shines throughout with his character being the most memorable of the entire cast.

I would never give this film an editing Oscar nomination as it simply doesn’t deserve it how long it is, and the same goes for Best Picture of course as the movie is simply not too good, though still not a terribly poor choice either. It’s just solid enough. Fields himself was snubbed in the Best Supporting Actor category ridiculously so.

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Yes, David Copperfield is technically impressive as I hinted in my second passage above. I usually fall far these historical/adaptation classic movies when they are this charming and endearing, much like in the vein of ‘Little Women’. The score’s great, Cukor’s direction is solid, the dialogue is pretty good and I just ate up its cinematography as the film looks stunning to behold, and yes, some scenes here are very cinematic and grand thankfully so.

David Copperfield is – like many book adaptations – too slow, too talkative, overlong and filled with too many characters. Some of the actors were also quite weak here. However, W. C. Fields is excellent and very memorable in his role, the film is charming and elegant throughout, and it really benefits from its solid direction and impressive cinematography with some very cinematic, grand sequences in it.

My Rating – 3.5