Pickwick (1969 TV Movie) User Reviews

Naughty is as naughty does!

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 23 June 2021]

While "Oliver!" is perhaps the only musical based upon a Charles Dickens novel to be a commercial success on the stage (and to a lesser extent "Scrooge"), there have been multiple attempts to bring song and dance into the world of early to mid 1800's England (and the earlier period of the French Revolution with "A Tale of Two Cities"), and while this version of "The Pickwick Papers" was a personal triumph for Sir Harry Secombe, it only managed a short run on Broadway. Perhaps the musical is far too British for American audiences, but the British TV version ends up being notable for its nostalgia if not for the abbreviated script.

This videotaped production of course lacks the cinematic gloriousness of the "Oliver!" and "Scrooge" movie versions but it is highly recommended for Secombe's lively performance as well as the remarkable ensemble which includes Roy Castle, Hattie Jacques and Sheila White whom viewers will remember as Bet in the movie version of "Oliver!" and the evil Messalina in the classic miniseries "I Claudius! ". This is far less serious than the other Dickens novels which have been musicalized ("Copperfield", "Great Expectations"), closer to the rhythmic, comical world of Gilbert and Sullivan, as well as "Half a Sixpence" and "Me and My Girl".

The plot really isn't much. Pickwick is simply trying to leave the world better than how he found it, hence his 11:00 number "If I Ruled the World", and he is also the target of several widows for matrimony. Secombe, already a musical Dickens veteran, having played Mr. Bumble in "Oliver!", certainly rules the audience as he passes laws to take over their hearts. At times, the musical numbers pop up faster than the dialogue between the numbers, and you wonder if the actors have any time to actually breathe. I would love to see a full stage version of this although it is obviously dated in many ways. But there's lots to love here, even with the rather sordid characters who overplay the villainy to make their shallowness turn them into comical buffoons.

Was the Musical Like This?

[fatcat-73450 · 5/10 · 27 May 2023]

I never saw the musical, but much of the magic of this early Dickens novel is lost in this production.

While the Pickwick Papers has arguably the easiest plot to translate to film in the Dickens corpus, consisting mostly of repetitive character portraits and disparate unrelated scenes satirising Victorian life or complaining about some social ill. That means that a few characters can be fleshed out and certain choice gaidens can be represented to bring us to the happy conclusion.

However, this work seems to avoid doing even the bare minimum of plot development. Instead, it crams copious amounts of long song and dance scenes in between blips of plot. Most of the songs, in my opinion, aren't good, and they're inane and not even closely related to the characters.

Then, like a procrastinating elementary school students' book report, all of the issues raised in the sprinkling of plot are resolved in like 30 seconds at the end with a dizzying smattering of Deus ex Machinae.

The best thing by far about the movie is Secombe's rendition of "If I Ruled the World." The best rendition of a beautiful song sung in a flawless operatic voice. You'll probably feel it appropriate if you read the novel, too. For Pickwick really is, for all his funny conservativism, a good guy who uses his wealth and influence to try to elevate people in his own way. He would use his tenure to do good for others if he ruled the world.

Honourable Mentions: Aladdin (1992). "Never Had a Friend Like Me" is similar, not only in title, but also in content to "Never Met a Feller Like Me," which elucidates on the characters of both Sam Weller and Samuel Pickwick. It's one of the few good songs in this musical.