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Nicholas Nickleby |
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Nicholas Nickleby - 1947 | 108 mins | Dramas | B&WThe Production TeamDirector: Alberto
Cavalcanti. Producer: Michael Balcon. Associate Producer: John Croydon. Production Supervisor: Hal Mason. Script: John Dighton. (from a novel by Charles Dickens) Cinematography: Gordon Dines. Special Effects: Lionel Banes and Barbara Barnard. Art Direction: Michael Relph. Costume Design: Marion Horn. Make-Up Artist: Ernest Taylor. Editing: Leslie Norman. Sound: Stephen Dalby and Eric Williams. Music: Lord Berners. Conductor: Ernest Irving. |
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The CastDerek Bond - Nicholas Nickleby Cedric Hardwicke - Ralph Nickleby Mary Merrall - Mrs Nickleby Sally Ann Howes - Kate Nickleby Bernard Miles - Newman Noggs Sybil Thorndike - Mrs Squeers Alfred Drayton - Wackford Squeers Vida Hope - Fanny Squeers Patricia Hayes - Phoebe Fay Compton - Mme Mantalini Cyril Fletcher - Mr Mantalini Stanley Holloway - Vincent Crummles |
Plot SynopsisAlberto Cavalcanti's last Ealing film was a version of Nicholas Nickleby, it appeared soon after the accomplished David Lean film, and its comparative failure is in some part due to the choice of book. Great Expectations is a much more dramatic story, with a clear narrative line easily disentangled from the usual Dickensian plot-padding; Nicholas Nickleby, on the other hand, presents a bewildering parade of minor characters throughout its meandering length, and indeed much of the attraction of the book lies in the detail of the picaresque narrative, so that any process of selection and eliminad to alienate its devotees. Although John Dighton's screenplay did its conscientious best, it must have proved an immensely difficult novel to adapt to a screen time of 108 minutes. The eponymous role was taken by Derek Bond who had played an officer
in The Captive Heart and who gave a bland but not unlikeable performance
that at least provided some continuity through what amounted to a succession
of cameos. Some of the casting was distinctly odd - Cyril Fletcher glimpsed
as Mantalini, Sir Cedric Hardwicke as a genteel Ralph Nickleby, the
villainous usurer into whose hands Nicholas and his mother and sister
fall on his father's death. The film is perhaps at its best in the early
sequences, showing life at the appalling hellhole of a school, Dotheboys
Hall, which is presented with a certain amount of passion; but after
Nickleby has left with Smike and joined the ranks of the theatrical
Crummles (Stanley Holloway), it becomes anaemic. Nicholas Nickleby plainly
represented an attempt on the part of Ealing to pursue another kind
of cinematic subject, with a nod in the direction of England's greatest
novelist. |
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