Editing David Copperfield (1935 film) (section)

==Reception==
The film was well-received upon its release in January 1935. Andre Sennwald of ''[[The New York Times]]'' called it "the most profoundly satisfying screen manipulation of a great novel the camera has ever given us."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9403E0D9103FE53ABC4152DFB766838E629EDE |title=Movie Review – David Copperfield |last=Sennwald |first=Andre |date=January 19, 1935 |website=[[The New York Times]]  |access-date=July 22, 2015 }}</ref> ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]'' wrote that it had "one of the most evenly good casts ever to have been assembled", with staging and costumes that were "almost always excellent."<ref>{{cite journal |date=January 22, 1935 |title=David Copperfield |journal=[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]] |location=New York |page=14 }}</ref> [[John Mosher (writer)|John Mosher]] of ''[[The New Yorker]]'' found the first half of the film "one of the superb things of the movies" and the second half more conventional, though "all of it is good." Mosher also praised the casting and opined that Freddie Bartholemew put on "one of the prettiest performances ever given on the screen by a youngster."<ref>{{cite news |last=Mosher |first=John |author-link=John Mosher (writer) |date=January 26, 1935 |title=The Current Cinema |journal=[[The New Yorker]] |pages=64–65 }}</ref> ''David Copperfield'' topped the ''[[Film Daily]]'' year-end poll of 451 critics around the country as the best film of 1935.<ref>{{cite news |date=January 9, 1936 |title="Copperfield" Heads 1935 'Ten Best' |url=https://archive.org/stream/filmdailyvolume669newy#page/66/mode/2up |journal=[[Film Daily]] |location=New York |page=1 |access-date=July 22, 2015 }}</ref>

''David Copperfield'' was nominated for three [[Academy Awards]], including [[Academy Award for Best Picture]], [[Academy Award for Best Film Editing|Best Film Editing]] ([[Robert J. Kern]]), and [[Best Assistant Director]] ([[Joseph M. Newman]]), and was nominated for the Mussolini Cup for Best Foreign Film at the [[Venice Film Festival]] (losing out to ''[[Anna Karenina (1935 film)|Anna Karenina]]'').

It was the 20th most popular film at the British box office in 1935-1936 after ''[[Modern Times (film)|Modern Times]]'', ''[[The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (film)|Lives of a Bengal Lancer]]'', ''[[Mutiny on the Bounty (1935 film)|Mutiny on the Bounty]]'', ''[[Top Hat]]'', ''[[The Great Ziegfeld]]'', ''[[The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934 film)|The Scarlet Pimpernel]]'', ''[[Mr Deeds Goes to Town]]'', ''[[Show Boat (1936 film)|Show Boat]]'', ''[[The Iron Duke (film)|The Iron Duke]]'', ''[[Love Me Forever (film)|Love Me Forever]]'', ''[[Sanders of the River]]'', ''[[The Dark Angel (1935 film)|Dark Angel]]'', ''[[The Ghost Goes West]]'', ''[[Follow the Fleet]]'', ''[[Swing Time (film)|Swing Time]]'', ''[[Things to Come]]'', ''[[The 39 Steps (1935 film)|The 39 Steps]]'', ''[[Clive of India (film)|Clive of India]]'', and ''[[Escape Me Never (1935 film)|Escape Me Never]]''.<ref>"The Film Business in the United States and Britain during the 1930s" by John Sedgwick and Michael Pokorny, ''The Economic History Review''New Series, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Feb., 2005), pp.79-112</ref>

There were several notable differences in the film from the book. For instance, in the film David never attends Salem House boarding school, and so the characters he met there do not appear, with the exception of Steerforth, who is instead introduced as head boy of the school David attends after going to live with Betsey Trotwood.

It is shown in many countries on television at Christmas. It is rated with four out of four stars every year in ''[[Leslie Halliwell|Halliwell's Film Guide]]''.

This was selected by ''The New York Times'' as one of the 1000 greatest movies ever made.

The film is referred to in the ''[[Dad's Army]]'' episode "[[The Deadly Attachment]]".

===Box office===
According to MGM records the film earned $2,969,000 at the box office worldwide and made a profit of $686,000.  It earned an additional $95,000 from a reissue in 1937-1938.<ref name="Mannix"/><ref name="david">David Thomson, ''Showman: The Life of David O. Selznick'', Abacus, 1993 gives a slightly different figure p 188</ref>