MovieChat Forums > Oliver Twist (1951) Discussion > Question (and spoilers)

Question (and spoilers)

posted 9 years ago by mercutio-8
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I watched this again after many years, and one thing that impressed me (character-wise), was near the end when the Artful Dodger, afraid of him though he may be, declares that he is NOT afraid of the now-refugee Bill Sikes and will turn him in if he gets the chance.

And...he does! When the crowd starts to appear, following the yelps of the poor traumatized pit bull, Dodger calls down, "He's up here!" He risks his life to have Sikes arrested...which brings me to my question.

Upon alerting the crowd, Sikes hits Dodger over the head and the boy falls. Everything from here on in happens at breakneck speed, but one thing is never clarified. Did Sikes actually kill Dodger, or was he knocked out? Or is it left to the opinion of the viewer.

The ending of the movie is different from the book in many ways (Dodger gets arrested and makes a big bravado show of himself at his hearing), but it is a very powerful film, nevertheless.

[–] richard.fuller1 9 years ago

I haven't read the book and my first exposure to this story was a '72 cartoon version called Oliver And the Artful Dodger.

This obviously came about because of the '68 musical, Oliver!, but it's also noteworthy there how prevalent the Artful Dodger was with Jack Wilde.

I watched Oliver! online a year or so ago, and now have just seen this SUPERB '48 film and I was left wondering if Anthony Newley here popularized the ARtful Dodger character and made him an equal to Oliver Twist in the story.