ITV is warning viewers that Sir David Lean’s celebrated 1948 film adaption of Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist contains ‘language from a bygone era’.
Critics are angered by the decision of the ITV X streaming service to include a warning they believe to be offensive and misleading for the well-regarded movie.
They point out a film released more than 75 years ago based on a novel now 176 years old would be bound to contain expressions from another time.
The warning for Oliver Twist on the ITV X streaming service states: ‘with some violence and language from a bygone era.’
But a forensic re-watching of the black-and-white classic throws up only tough sentiments, and no language even Generation Z would find offensive.
In the film, young Oliver is subjected to verbal abuse by those around him who taunt him with names like ‘orphan’, ‘workhouse’, ‘little bag of bones’, and the ‘worst disposed boy I ever did see.’
But this bullying which reflect the language of the original novel, is crucial to Oliver’s story of triumph against all the odds.
The film also highlights attitudes to crime and poverty which were prevalent in Victorian England.
ITV is warning viewers that Sir David Lean’s celebrated 1948 film adaption of Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist contains ‘language from a bygone era’
It is noted by critics that the movie faced backlash upon its initial release in 1948 due to concerns about Sir Alec Guiness’s portrayal of Fagin possibly perpetuating anti-Semitic stereotypes, to the extent that the American debut was postponed for a period of three years.
Critics are furious that the ITV X streaming service has chosen to issue an ‘objectionable’ and ‘highly misleading’ warning for the acclaimed masterpiece
So in one scene the bullying Noah Claypole, played by Michael Dear, taunts Oliver about the fate of his late mother.
He tells the young boy: ‘Your mother must have been a regular right down bad un…It’s a great deal better workhouse that she died when she did, else she would be doing hard labour in Bridewell or transported or hung which is more likely than either isn’t it.’
But this again reflects the language in the original novel.
Critics have accused ITV of producing a warning which manages to be both woke and meaningless.
Professor Jeremy Black, the author of England in the Age of Dickens said: ‘The language employed in the warning is pejorative, misleading, and dangerous.
‘This is doubly ironic, for Dickens both as a great novelist and as a major journalist wrote with commitment and clarity about problems not only of his age but of all ages.
‘Oliver Twist deals with the vulnerability of youth. This is captured brilliantly in the power of the novel and the vision of the film. They should not be touched.’
Others claim ITV are being disingenuous.
The film was based on the original novel, Oliver Twist, by renowned author Charles Dickens
They point out that the film did attract controversy when it was released in 1948 because some critics thought Sir Alec Guiness’s portrayal of Fagin was anti-Semitic – so much so that the American release was delayed for three years.
John Sutherland, the author of Triggered Literature and an emeritus professor of English Literature said if ITV had any concerns about Sir Alec’s portrayal it should say so directly.
He said: ‘I saw the film, aged ten, in 1948 and had nightmares for a week. It’s the mealy mouth of current triggering practice which irritates. There’s often a subtext they don’t dare come out with.
‘The offensiveness in David Lean’s 1948 film of Oliver Twist is Fagin being played by gentile Alec Guinness with a prosthetic nose as long as Pinocchio’s, his Yiddish lisp, and his implied paedophile interest in little boys.’
The David Lean film which starred John Howard Davies as Oliver, Robert Newton as Bill Sykes, and Kay Walsh as Nancy is frequently hailed as one of the greatest ever Dickens adaptations and one of the finest films ever made.
Lean was praised for the way he restructured the story at the heart of the novel and most subsequent TV and film adaptations including the musical Oliver! are in large part an adaptation of this film rather than the book.
In 1999 the British Film Institute (BFI) ranked the film number 46 on a list of the one hundred best British films ever made.
Six years later the same organisation included it on a list of fifty films everyone should see by the age of fourteen.
The British Board of Film Classification has rated the film U for universal, meaning anyone can see it.
Its content guidance – which does not mention the film’s language highlights – ‘mild scary scenes and violence.’
A spokesperson for ITV declined to comment.
