David Copperfield

"David Copperfield" (1935) is MGM's sprawling Dickens adaptation — watch it online on iFILM. Director George Cukor assembled a lineup that reads like a catalogue of 1930s Hollywood talent: young Freddie Bartholomew as child David, Frank Lawton as the grown man, W.C. Fields as the incorrigible Mr. Micawber, Basil Rathbone as the cold-eyed stepfather Murdstone, plus Lionel Barrymore and Edna May Oliver.

David's story opens with a father he never knew and a childhood that keeps finding new ways to get worse — a contemptuous stepfather, factory labor, a desperate walk across England to find his only living relative. From there: con artists, loyal friends, a woman he loves who is wrong for him, and one who is right. Dickens packed the better part of Victorian England into this novel; Cukor packed most of Dickens into 130 minutes without anything vital feeling missing.

When it opened, the tagline called it "the most beloved motion picture of 1935" — for once, not far off. For anyone curious where Hollywood's long affair with Dickens truly began, this is the answer. Stream "David Copperfield" (1935) online on iFILM.