Steffi_P

In our era there are women warriors in film and TV, from Xena to Beatrix Kiddo, but back in Hollywood's classic era they were an extreme rarity. Joan of Arc was an exception that was acceptable partly because she came from history not fiction and, more crucially, she was a saint and a miracle worker. The tale was told in the only way it could be then, as one of the religious epics that would become a major presence in the cinema of the following decade.

Appearing a few years before the epic genre really took off, and while studios were still recovering from the lowered budgets of WW2, Joan of Arc is not quite as grandiose as the biblical movies that would come later on. Based on a play (Maxwell Anderson's Joan of Lorraine), upon its release it was accused of being too talky and lacking in action. But this is made up for in a number of ways, not least of which is its lavish period detail. It is epic in scope and scale, but only so far as the history requires. There is no spectacle for spectacle's sake. The movie is exactly as big and spectacular as it needs to be.

The movie is also buoyed by a leading performance from Ingrid Bergman. Bergman brings a necessary presence to the role, not in her delivery of lines but in the power of her emoting, which transcends any stolidness in the screenplay. An especially notable moment is her look of genuine disappointment when she realises that the dauphin has been replaced by one of his lackeys. The other standout performance is that of José Ferrer as the real dauphin. Fresh from the stage, Ferrer is theatrical, Shakespearean even, but that is just the sort of exuberant touch the movie needs to stop it becoming staid.

This was the final project of ace director Victor Fleming, who had earlier helmed (most of) Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz. Joan of Arc sees him taking a more relaxed pace (his trademark was speed and punchiness), but with no less of an eye for intelligent staging and shot composition. There's an excellent scene where a young Joan wanders distractedly away from the chattering of her family to sit alone by the fire, framed in profile with the flames forming a corona about her head. This isn't just some obscure bit of symbolism or foreshadowing, it's a way of showing her in clear isolation while still keeping her image dynamic and vibrant.

The presentation and performance of this edition of the Joan of Arc story compensates for its dramatic, dialogue-based format. And, while it remains very much a movie based on Joan's sainthood and Christian devotion, Bergman makes her touchingly human, and this allows the character to reach us from the past.

Stories, no matter how respected and illustrious, can exist beyond their origins. Charles Dickens's novel of Oliver Twist has been adapted for the screen a number of times, but rather than simply returning time and again to the source novel successive versions have taken cues from each other, gradually refining the tale over the centuries. David Lean's 1948 version invented the idea of Olvier being abducted by Bill Sykes for the rooftop finale (in the novel Oliver is safe and sound by this point). The subsequent Lionel Bart musical copied this ending, effectively making it official. It's a stark example of the power of cinema as a shaper of stories and cultural knowledge. This latest big screen offering takes that trajectory even further with a modern-style, naturalistic take on the Dickens tale.

Just as Dickens's books are most often remembered for their vivid characters so do many Dickens adaptations succeed or fail on the strength of their cast. With this version, I'm quite impressed by Barney Clarke in the title role. Clarke is not a stupefyingly good actor, but in him we at last have an Oliver who is not completely meek and frail, and has a believable amount of fight in him. Ben Kingsley's is certainly the best dramatic Fagin ever, and really the only high quality acting job in the movie. But some of the best moments come from the obvious rapport between the supporting players. There are some moments that seem so perfectly to capture something very familiar and immediate yet also appropriately Dickensian, as when Fagin's boys remove Oliver's fine clothes - they sound just like a normal bunch of teenagers, in spite of the archaic language.

But many other times, it just doesn't work, and there are some absolutely woeful bits of acting on display. Worst offender here is Jamie Forman as Bill Sykes; a wooden performance of sub-Eastenders calibre. Also, while it's nice to have a Nancy who is less a mother-substitute and more like a big sister, Leanne Rowe is just not that good. And though the realism of the performances can sometimes conjure up something wonderfully natural and fluid, it can just as easily produce the irritating drone of Jeremy Swift's Mr Bumble.

It seems that many of the cast members, good or bad, were chosen for their appropriate physical appearance than anything else. This is not surprising, since Polanski his crafted a rich and thriving world for them to inhabit, as if he was creating a photographic illustration more than a movie. Pawel Edelman's cinematography captures the detail and texture of a Gustav Doré print. The setting does not dampen Polanski's trademark visual style, with lots of tight, grim-looking compositions. A neat example is when Oliver is hauled before the workhouse governors, and the handful of seated men are arranged to create a surreal kind of tunnel. The 19th century squalor seems stiflingly close to the viewer.

But perhaps the most significant thing about this edition of Dickens's story is its manipulation of the story. Screenwriter Ronald Harwood has excised the subplot of Oliver being related to Mr Brownlow, a daft construction that stretched the bounds of probability and confirmed the class prejudice Dickens held at that time. This adaptation also emphasises Oliver's final confrontation with Fagin, a powerful and moving coda and a very mature thing to include. A lot of other minor diversions have been stripped away to give a very direct and efficient retelling. But this tinkering with the text is also the movie's downfall. In simplifying the story, just a few too many corners have been cut. Key characters like Bill Sykes are introduced without ceremony. There's also not enough time to build up a convincing relationship between Oliver and Brownlow. This version of Oliver Twist may look sumptuous and have many flashes of brilliance, but as a whole it is a rather cold, drab experience.

With the exception of a handful of early shorts, Charlie Chaplin took responsibility for every possible aspect of his creative process, not only starring in his pictures but also writing, producing, directing, editing and even scoring them himself. In the silent era this worked very well because he was a master at the comical ballet of slapstick. When sound arrived however, he found himself struggling with verbal comedy and the inelegance of dialogue.

Monsieur Verdoux is a "comedy of murders" developed from an idea by Orson Welles. It's a decent little story, with a dark theme for both Welles and Chaplin, but one they have melded to a more humanist end. In adapting Welles's outline, Chaplin shows his flair for creating intriguing characters, making his hero a murderer who will rescue a caterpillar from being stepped upon and is filled with love for his wheelchair-bound "true" wife and their young son. As with Chaplin's other talking pictures, the biggest problem in the screenplay is his trite dialogue peppered with a touch of the awkward, such as the son in the first scene describing his mother (or sister; it's not entirely clear) as having feet like submarines.

In his earlier movies Chaplin's style as a director tended towards simplicity, eschewing close-ups and camera moves for long, static takes for the action to unfold in. Now, perhaps in an attempt to appear modern, he is being a bit more adventurous with the camera, but it appears clunky and misguided. Luckily, Chaplin still has his eye for beautiful, iconic moments. His murder of one wife, disappearing into a room offscreen as the sunset shines through an upstairs window, combines the sinisterness of Hitchcock with the grace of Griffith. In another, quite lovely moment, he uses a flower shop telephone to call a would-be wife, but in the foreground we see the overwhelmed reaction of a young florist, utterly convinced of his sincerity.

Chaplin remains, in attempt at least, a slapstick comic, and he tries here and there to grease the narrative of Monsieur Verdoux with a bit of physical comedy. It bears some resemblance to his silent work, but is always accompanied by verbal commentary from the characters, which makes it seem flat, almost mechanical. This is something Chaplin himself feared when the talkies first arrived, but nevertheless he ploughs on with forced routines that seem at odds with the film world going on around them. At least the star himself is still good enough, able to slide from cheeky and comical to stern and serious with ease and credibility.

I think the unfortunate truth is that, with the added complications of sound, the entire process of making a movie was beyond Chaplin's capabilities. If only he had had the humility to allow someone else to co-write with him and come up with some decent dialogue, or handed over directing duties to someone who could better reconcile the comedy and drama. Essentially, Monsieur Verdoux is still a very good movie – Chaplin's genius is still tucked away in there – but it lacks the overall brilliance of his earlier works.