Cruikshank caricature meets film noir in Lean's second Dickens adaptation, a tour de force of expressionist cinematography and telling period detail. The stark, elemental drama of the opening-a pregnant woman struggling across windswept moors to give birth to Oliver in the workhouse-sets the stage for the story that will follow, the saga of an individual buffeted by social forces as irresistible as the forces of nature. As the frail young Oliver is jounced along on a string of sudden changes of fortune, from the workhouse to Fagin's criminal lair to a benefactor's mansion and back again, the camera finds beauty in flamboyant squalor and frames episodes of dark humor. (“God Is Just, God Is Good,” proclaim the signs in the workhouse.) Juxtaposing extreme characters and varied settings, Lean edits together a society. The film was initially condemned as anti-Semitic for its depiction of Fagin; although the character is indeed egregious, Alec Guinness gives a sneakily ironic performance.