David Copperfield

1969

1h 58m

IMDb RATING

5.4/10

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TV Movie

A made for TV movie of the Charles Dickens' classic novel, turns Dickens' picaresque tale into an extended flashback, with David Copperfield Robin Phillips as a young man, brooding on a deserted beach, recalling his youth. The characters are all trotted out in choppy flashbacks as David remembers his life as a young orphan, brought to London and passed around from relatives, to guardians, to boarding school.

Directors

Delbert Mann

Writers

Jack Pulman(screenplay by)

Charles Dickens(novel by)

Stars

Richard Attenborough

Cyril Cusack

Edith Evans

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Top cast

Mr. Tungay

Barkis

Aunt Betsy Trotwood

Dora Spenlow

Agnes Wickfield

Mrs. Micawber

Uriah Heep

Mr. Creakle

David Copperfield

Dan Peggotty

Mr. Micawber

Mr. Dick

Emily

Mr. Murdstone

Porter

Clara Peggotty

Jane Murdstone

Ham Peggotty

Directors

Delbert Mann

Writers

Jack Pulman(screenplay by)

Charles Dickens(novel by)

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User reviews1

Review

Featured review

6/10

This was never one of my favourite Dickens stories - I always found the title character just a bit , well, wet! Anyway, the really quite mediocre Robin Phillips take the role for this adaptation, and we follow his rather brutal adventures of childhood and early adulthood that see him deal with bullying, beating, extortion and tragedy. As with the book, to which this is fairly faithful, there are quite literally heaps of curious and engaging characters he encounters along the way, most notably Sir Ralph Richardson's wonderfully over the top "Micawber", Sir Michael Redgrave's "Peggotty" desperately seeking his errant daughter "Emily" (Sinéad Cusack) and from Ron Roody as the duplicitous, downright nasty piece of work that is "Uriah Heap"! The production is pretty lacklustre. The photography offers us lots of long, moody shots of the contemplative hero on the beach - and the cameraman seems content to try out his new zoom lens just once (or thrice) too often. Malcolm Arnold provides us with an unremarkable score and the whole story irather plods along without much potency. As an introduction to the work of Dickens, it might have a purpose in diverting the viewer to the author's (and his other, better) novels, but a piece of cinema it's little better than a very well cast television movie.

Geronimo196703 Jun, 2023