The Old Curiosity Shop

Thomas Bentley built his entire career out of Dickens: prior to 1921, he had filmed Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Hard Times, The Pickwick Papers, and even managed a remake of his 1914 version of The Old Curiosity Shop. His third version of the novel, photographed by Claude Friese-Greene (the son of the bankrupted camera inventor) is a lovingly butchered rendition of the story of the moneylender Quilp (Petrie) and the tragic Little Nell (Benson). It's cloyingly sentimental, and in its style still shows the primitive glow of early British movie-making of the 1910s. More of an artifact than an adaptation.