--- title: "David Copperfield" year: 1935 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/david-copperfield" fi1m_score: 81 critics_score: 82 critics_reviews: 4 published: "2026-09-19T22:50:50.424271+00:00" updated: "2026-09-19T22:51:03.430097+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # David Copperfield (1935) Directed by George Cukor · 2h 10m · MPA NR · Drama, Romance, Adventure **Fi1m score: 81** · Critics 82 (early) from 4 reviews *In a sentence:* Half a great film about a boy; then he grows up and it becomes a well-dressed pageant > George Cukor’s *David Copperfield* squeezes the novel into 130 minutes and, for its first hour, is as good as a Dickens film gets, carried by Freddie Bartholomew and Edna May Oliver. Once Frank Lawton takes over, it becomes a procession of well-cast chapters. ## Synopsis David Copperfield is born at Blunderstone Rookery to a young widow, Clara Copperfield (Elizabeth Allan), on the night his formidable Aunt Betsey Trotwood (Edna May Oliver) turns up, learns the baby is a boy and leaves without a word. David (Freddie Bartholomew) grows up between his mother, the housekeeper Clara Peggotty (Jessie Ralph) and holidays in an upturned boat on Yarmouth beach with Ham (John Buckler) and the Peggotty family. Then Mr Edward Murdstone (Basil Rathbone) begins calling. He marries Clara, brings his sister into the house, beats the boy and sends him to London to wash bottles in a warehouse, where David lodges with the Micawbers and starts planning his escape to the aunt in Dover. ## Review The problem with filming *David Copperfield* is that there is too much of it, and producer David O. Selznick, director George Cukor and screenwriter Howard Estabrook chose to solve that by keeping nearly everyone and giving them less time each. The result is a film in two halves that do not quite belong together. The first, with Freddie Bartholomew as the boy, is very good. The second, with Frank Lawton as the man, is handsome, faithful and slightly beside the point. We recommend it, and we recommend it chiefly for the hour in which a small boy is frightened. Bartholomew plays David without a trace of the stage child. He listens more than he speaks, and when Basil Rathbone’s Murdstone first stands in the parlour with a hand resting on Elizabeth Allan’s shoulder, the boy’s face does the work the novel does in three pages. Rathbone frightened us. He never raises his voice; he lowers it, and the beating that follows is staged mostly on Bartholomew’s face and the door. Allan plays Clara as a pretty, weak woman who knows she has made a mistake and cannot say so, and Jessie Ralph’s Peggotty, all bosom and apron and outrage, is the only warmth left in the house once the Murdstones have it. Oliver T. Marsh photographs Blunderstone in soft grey daylight and London in soot, with ceilings that seem to press down on the child. Dolly Tree puts Murdstone in unbroken black and gives Aunt Betsey a bonnet you could defend a coastline with. Robert J. Kern cuts from chapter to chapter without dawdling, which is how the film fits so much in, and Herbert Stothart’s score is the one department that does not trust us: it swells over the sad scenes as though we might otherwise miss them. Edna May Oliver’s Aunt Betsey is the performance we would show anyone. Her first scene, chasing donkeys off her patch of green at Dover, is played entirely straight, and that is the joke. We laughed out loud, and then watched her take in the ragged child on her doorstep and change, over one long look, from a comic turn into a guardian. W. C. Fields, as Micawber, is the other thing most critics remember, and rightly; he plays the man’s optimism as a kind of professional pride and never asks us to find him pathetic. Then David grows up, and the film loses its centre. Frank Lawton is pleasant and upright and gives us nothing to worry about, which in a Dickens hero is a fault. Around him the book’s second half arrives in instalments. Maureen O’Sullivan’s Dora Spenlow is a doll with a small dog. Madge Evans’s Agnes Wickfield waits, patiently, in a series of doorways. John Buckler’s Ham and Herbert Mundin’s Barkis get their scenes and are gone. The novelist Hugh Walpole turns up as the Vicar, and Empire credits him with a share of the adaptation, which may explain the fidelity: everyone is here, and hardly anyone is here for long. Cukor was always better with actors than with spectacle, and this film confirms it. The rooms are the right size, the faces are the right faces, and the big set pieces are competent rather than alive. What the second half needs is a David who wants something as badly as the boy wanted to reach Dover. It does not get one, and so it becomes a very well-cast illustrated edition. Watch the first hour with a child of about Bartholomew’s age. Watch the second with the novel open beside you, so that you know which chapter you are in. *Fi1m score 81, published 19 September 2026.* ### Reviews we read (4) - **The New Yorker**, John C. Mosher (90/100, inferred): The critic finds the film highly enjoyable, especially for those familiar with the book, and praises the first half as one of the superb achievements of the movies. He particularly commends the casting, noting ideal choices like Edna May Oliver as Aunt Betsey Trotwood. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1935/01/26/1935-01-26-064-tny-cards-000007707) - **The New York Times**, Andre Sennwald (90/100, inferred): The critic calls the film the most profoundly satisfying screen adaptation of a great novel ever made and a genuine masterpiece. He singles out the superb cast, especially Freddie Bartholomew as the young David, for bringing the Dickens characters vividly to life. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1935/01/19/archives/the-capitol-presents-a-distinguished-screen-edition-of-david.html) - **Empire**, David Parkinson (80/100, inferred): The critic highlights the fidelity of the adaptation by screenwriters Howard Estabrook and Hugh Walpole and praises key performances, especially W.C. Fields as Micawber and strong supporting turns from the cast. It concludes that this remains the most faithful and powerful screen version of the Dickens novel. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/david-copperfield-review/) - **Variety** (70/100, inferred): The review highlights the successful screen adaptation of Dickens's expansive characters and notes the charm they bring to the film. It singles out W.C. Fields's performance as Micawber as a standout success. [Read](https://variety.com/1934/film/reviews/david-copperfield-1200411069/) ## Details - **Director:** George Cukor - **Director:** George Cukor - **Screenplay:** Howard Estabrook - **Novel:** Charles Dickens - **Cinematography:** Oliver T. Marsh - **Editor:** Robert J. Kern - **Music:** Herbert Stothart - **Costume design:** Dolly Tree - **Producer:** David O. Selznick - **Cast:** Freddie Bartholomew as David Copperfield as a Boy; Frank Lawton as David Copperfield as a Man; Edna May Oliver as Aunt Betsey Trotwood; Jessie Ralph as Clara Peggotty; Madge Evans as Agnes Wickfield as a Woman; Maureen O'Sullivan as Dora Spenlow; Elizabeth Allan as Clara Copperfield; Harry Beresford as Dr. Chillip - **Runtime:** 2h 10m - **Certificate (MPA):** NR - **Release (the US):** 18 January 1935 - **Genres:** Drama, Romance, Adventure - **Budget:** $1 million - **Box office:** $3 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE8GRptlSt4 ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $9.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-19.* Also available in: US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1936: Best Film Editing (nominated); Best Picture (nominated) ## If you liked this - *Great Expectations* (1946), Fi1m 84: Lean’s Dickens: fewer characters, more fog, and a childhood that genuinely frightens. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/great-expectations.md) - *The Personal History of David Copperfield* (2019): Iannucci’s version keeps the jokes and finds an adult David worth following. - *Pather Panchali* (1955), Fi1m 93: Another childhood observed from ground level, in a village rather than a rookery. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/pather-panchali.md) - *The 400 Blows* (1959), Fi1m 91: A boy nobody quite wants, and a camera that refuses to pity him. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-400-blows.md) - *Bleak House* (2005), Fi1m 65: Fifteen episodes prove Dickens fits television better than two hours of film. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/bleak-house.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/david-copperfield