Oliver Twist

(1922)

74 minutes.

Drama / Silent film with music track

Directed by Frank Lloyd

Cost: Lon Chaney and Jackie Coogan

Lon Chaney portrays the frightful, despicable Fagin in this richly atmospheric screen adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist.  Jackie Coogan stars as the irrepressible waif in 19th-century England whose adventures lead him from undernourished orphan to pampered youth.  Faithful in spirit and letter to Dickens’ immortal story, Oliver Twist is an exquisitely designed film, recreating with painterly care the firelit chambers, sepulchral basements, and sordid slums that confine its menagerie of eccentric and pathetic personages.