The Stars Of “Oliver Twist”

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 38, 7 January 1949, Page 3

The Stars Of “Oliver Twist”

JOHN HOWARD DAVIES Slight, fair-haired, and fragilelooking, exactly fitting Dickens’s description of the boy, eight-year-old John Howard Davies, who plays the title role in Cineguild’s screen version of “Oliver Twist” has the most coveted juvenile part of tfye year. He was discovered quite by chance after a nation-wide search for a suitable Oliver had failed. One Of the casting directors of the J. Arthur Rank Organisation, visiting friends in Hampstead, saw their young son when he came downstairs to say goodnight after his bath. Looking at the fragile, angeliclooking child with shining fair curls, he realised that here was the only possible Oliver Twist. John Howard Davies’ qualifications for the part do not, however, end with his looks. Although he has never acted before, both his mother and his father (who is a London film critic), come from theatrical families. To him, being Oliver Twist is one of the most important British films ever made, meant just a pleasant way of spending time among interesting people. His future is undecided. He himself changes his mind every other day, but being a film star seldom figures among his dreams. He v/ould rather drive the “Golden Arrow.” ROBERT NEWTON A great actor and a great personality, Robert Newton, as Bill Sikes in Cineguild’s “Oliver Twist”, gives an outstanding performance that is likely to rank among the finest in pictures. He brings out the humanity as well as the more obvious brutality in Bill Sikes. By subtle and effective touphes, he shows the criminal’s horror and remorse when he realises that he has

murdered Nancy, the girl he loved, and just as ably, his clumsy tenderness towards her when' they are together in “The Three Cripples Tavern.” Born at Shaftsbury, Dorset, in 1905, he made his first stage appearance at 15. His successful career has been punctuated by tours of South Africa, Canada and the United States, as well as work on a cattle ranch, and services in the Navy. For two years, he ran the celebrated Shilling Theatre at Fulham. Like so many other firs class actors, he worked at the Old Vic. KAY WALSH , Playing the tragic Nancy in Cineguild’s “Oliver Twist,” Kay Walsh has been on the stage and screen since she was in her teens. Her career began as a dancer in Andre Chariot revues, and she has appeared in London musical comedy, revues and straight plays. Small, ash-blonde, with large blue eyes, she is married to Director David Lean. She is greatly interested in the technical side, of filmmaking, and was a script-writer on “Great Expectations.” She made her screen debut in 1938 in “I See Ice.” Establishing her reputation as a screen actress with her performance in Noel Coward’s “In • Which We Serve,” she played John Mills’ sweetheart. She was again opposite him in “This Happy Breed,” when she had the part of Queenie, daughter of the Gibbons family, round whose lives the story is woven. In both these films, Kay Walsh was directed by her husband.