Trailer
Plot summary
Born after his father's death, David Copperfield spends his early years with his mother and Clara Peggotty, the household's housekeeper. His mother remarries, choosing Mr. Murdstone, a stern man, and Murdstone's sister Jane comes to live with them. After the mother's death, Murdstone puts the boy to work in London at the family's wine bottling plant, where the Micawber family looks after him. Mr. Micawber lives beyond his means and runs into debt. David sets off on foot for Dover to find his great-aunt Betsey Trotwood, seventy-two miles away, and is robbed of his money and belongings on the road. His aunt and her lodger Mr. Dick take him in, and he goes to a boarding school in Canterbury, lodging with the lawyer Wickfield and his daughter Agnes.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about David Copperfield (1935)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Charles Laughton was originally cast as Mr. Micawber and was fitted with a bald cap because Dickens calls the character hairless, but after two days he disliked his dailies and asked to be replaced. Selznick let him go with the project five weeks into production.
- W. C. Fields's contract required him to play the part with a British accent, but he had difficulty learning the character's florid dialogue and read it off cue cards, so he speaks in his own voice without any affected accent.
- David Copperfield is the only film in which W. C. Fields does not ad lib; he plays the character straight, and both a juggling routine and a familiar snake anecdote he wanted to add were denied.
- David O. Selznick wanted to film the novel because his Russian father, Lewis J. Selznick, learned English from it and read it to his sons every night. Louis B. Mayer agreed MGM would finance it only if his contract child star Jackie Cooper played the young David, but after a talent search in Canada and Great Britain the part went to Freddie Bartholomew.
- Cedric Gibbons recreated 19th-century London on the MGM backlot, the white-cliffs-of-Dover scenes outside Aunt Betsey's house were filmed at Malibu, and the exterior of Canterbury Cathedral was shot even though it appears in the film for less than a minute.
