"The Motion Picture Event of the Year!"
When 9-year-old orphan Oliver Twist dares to ask his cruel taskmaster, Mr. Bumble, for a second serving of gruel, he's hired out as an apprentice. Escaping that dismal fate, young Oliver falls in with the street urchin known as the Artful Dodger and his criminal mentor, Fagin. When kindly Mr. Brownlow takes Oliver in, Fagin's evil henchman Bill Sikes plots to kidnap the boy.
Dickie Moore
Oliver Twist
Irving Pichel
Fagin
William 'Stage' Boyd
Bill Sikes
Doris Lloyd
Nancy Sikes
Alec B. Francis
Mr. Brownlow
Barbara Kent
Rose Maylie
Sonny Ray
The Artful Dodger
George K. Arthur
Toby Crackit
George Nash
Charles Bates
When 9-year-old orphan Oliver Twist dares to ask his cruel taskmaster, Mr. Bumble, for a second serving of gruel, he's hired out as an apprentice. Escaping that dismal fate, young Oliver falls in with the street urchin known as the Artful Dodger and his criminal mentor, Fagin. When kindly Mr. Brownlow takes Oliver in, Fagin's evil henchman Bill Sikes plots to kidnap the boy.
I don't know how many versions of this classic Dickens story I have seen (I was even in one on stage in the early 1980s) but I have to give this credit for being the only one, to date, that has made me laugh. The cherubic young Dickie Moore in the title role was seven or eight when he made this, and frequently he looks like he awaiting instructions from an off-screen parent before commencing his scene - more often than not with an hugely inappropriate smile, or grin, or both... The rest of the cast do a workmanlike job with this super story; Irving Pichel is quite convincing as the manipulative miser "Fagin", as is Sonny Ray with his wobbly hat, as the "Artful Dodger" and a suitably sinister William Boyd as the villainous "Sikes". Subsequent versions are grittier and darker, offering us a much more malevolent view of London at the very start of the Victorian era, but this has a certain charm to it that makes the brief, quite well (and eerily at times) stitched together, adaptation well worth a gander.
Musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, a classic tale of an orphan who runs away from the workhouse and joins up with a group of boys headed by the Artful Dodger and trained to be pickpockets by master thief Fagin.
When 9-year-old orphan Oliver Twist dares to ask his cruel taskmaster, Mr. Bumble, for a second serving of gruel, he's hired out as an apprentice. Escaping that dismal fate, young Oliver falls in with the street urchin known as the Artful Dodger and his criminal mentor, Fagin. When kindly Mr. Brownlow takes Oliver in, Fagin's evil henchman Bill Sikes plots to kidnap the boy.
Desmond Doyle is devastated when his wife abandons their family on the day after Christmas. His unemployment, and the fact that there is no woman in the house to care for the children—Evelyn, Dermot and Maurice—make it clear to the authorities this is an untenable situation. The Catholic Church and the Irish courts decide to put the Doyle children into Church-run orphanages.
A retelling of L.M. Montgomery's story of Anne Shirley, an orphan who is accidentally sent to a couple looking to adopt a boy instead.
When 9-year-old orphan Oliver Twist dares to ask his cruel taskmaster, Mr. Bumble, for a second serving of gruel, he's hired out as an apprentice. Escaping that dismal fate, young Oliver falls in with the street urchin known as the Artful Dodger and his criminal mentor, Fagin. When kindly Mr. Brownlow takes Oliver in, Fagin's evil henchman Bill Sikes plots to kidnap the boy.
The true story of boys being sexually abused at their orphanage, run by a religious community in Newfoundland.
Rip Porter is sentenced to seven years in prison for beating his wife, Wendy. When he is released, he discovers that Wendy gave up their child, and the privileged Campbell family adopted him. The two families are soon in a legal battle for the child they both love.
A young British girl born and reared in India loses her neglectful parents in an earthquake. She is returned to England to live at her uncle's castle. Her uncle is very distant due to the loss of his wife ten years before. Neglected once again, she begins exploring the estate and discovers a garden that has been locked and forgotten. Aided by one of the servants' boys, she begins restoring the garden, and eventually discovers some other secrets of the manor.
The lives of two cousins are complicated by the return of an ex-boyfriend and an illegitimate child.
After learning that a boy their age has been accidentally killed near their rural homes, four boys decide to go see the body. Gordie, Vern, Chris, and Teddy encounter a mean junk man and a marsh full of leeches, but they also learn more about one another and their very different home lives. Just a lark at first, the boys' adventure evolves into a defining event in their lives.