Crummles hires the two as actors and casts them in a production of Romeo and Juliet, in which they are successful. In search of food and lodging, they stop at an inn, and the proprietor introduces them to actor-manager Vincent Crummles, who owns and operates a travelling theatrical troupe with his actress wife. As they are leaving the city, they make the acquaintance of Madeline Bray, the sole support of her father, who gambled away his fortune and now is indebted to Nicholas's uncle. He and Smike decide to search for work elsewhere.

A job as a tutor of French for the Kenwig daughters comes to comic disaster. Nicholas tries to find a job, but rejects a low-paying position as a politician's secretary. Nicholas and Smike take lodgings with Newman Noggs, Ralph Nickleby's clerk. Nicholas eventually rebels and escapes, taking with him young friend – the crippled Smike. They physically, verbally, and emotionally abuse their young charges on a regular basis. Squeers, run their boarding school, Dotheboys Hall in Yorkshire, like a prison. Nicholas is horrified to discover that his employers, the sadistic Mr.

Snawley, who is 'boarding' his two unwanted stepsons. Squeers just as he concludes his daily business with Mr. Ralph arranges for Nicholas to be hired as a tutor, and finds Kate work as a seamstress. This first sound screen adaptation of the book followed silent films released in 19.Īfter the father of a family dies, leaving the wife and children with no source of income, Nicholas Nickleby, with his mother and his younger sister Kate, travel to London to seek help from their wealthy but cold-hearted uncle Ralph, a money-lender. The screenplay by John Dighton is based on the Charles Dickens novel The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1839). The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (also known simply as Nicholas Nickleby) is a 1947 British drama film directed by Alberto Cavalcanti and starring Cedric Hardwicke.

Mr squeers