American release of the British motion picture “Oliver Twist” will be delayed a year or longer, it is reported today from London in Variety, leading U.S. theatrical publication.
“The film will be stalled until world conditions, particularly the Palestine crisis, quiet down,” the report said, revealing that the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League criticized the picture because of its portrayal of Fagin, one of the characters in the Dickens novel, as a grotesque caricature of a Jew.
Variety also carries a report from Toronto stating that the Jewish Community Council there lodged a protest against the showing of Oliver Twist in Canadian theatres. Following the premiere of the film in a local movie, the Toronto Globe and Mail criticized the picture, declaring: “While the producers point out that Fagin is not necessarily a Jew, and that the make-up is accidentally Jewish in appearance, they have not explained certain little Jewish hand mannerisms, or the use of a particular type of flat hat that Fagin uses and which is strictly a period piece of Jewish headgear.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
