Mr Quilp [1975] [DVD]

Anthony Newley, who first came to prominence as the Artful Dodger in David Lean's Oliver Twist, plays the mean-spirited, hunchbacked money-lender Quilp in this film version of Charles Dickens's The Old Curiosity Shop.

The star also composed the songs in the manner of Lionel Bart's Oliver!. Co-financed by the Readers' Digest organisation, this is principally a sanitised, Americanised, family-orientated affair that nevertheless preserves some of the darker elements of the original. The performances, especially Newley's, put the emphasis on caricature and grotesquerie, which is the norm for Dickens adaptations.