Oliver!
Directed by Carol Reed
Vernon Harris from the musical by Lionel Bart and the novel by Charles Dickens
1968/UK
IMDb link
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel
[box] Oliver Twist: Please sir, I want some more.[/box]
Carol Reed finally gets his Best Director Oscar for this? Not a fan.
This loosely follows the plot of the Dickens novel, omitting some of the darker bits. In particular, Fagin is the villain of the novel whereas here he is a comic character playing a lovable rapscallion adored by his gang of small pickpockets.
Young Oliver (Mark Lester) was born out of wedlock in a workhouse. Mom died in childbirth and he is put to work as soon as possible. The workhouse starves its young charges by feeding them gruel, and not much of it. When Oliver rebels, he is “sold” to an undertaker. His rebellious streak reveals itself again and rather than being carted back to the workhouse he decides to walk all the way to London.
His first acquaintance in the big city is the Artful Dodger (Jack Wild), one of Fagin’s boys. The Dodger is apparently always on the lookout for naive young boys with no family to protect them. Oliver fits this role nicely. The Dodger takes Oliver to Fagin, an elderly fence of stolen property who teaches him to pickpocket. Eventually he is caught but the victim, a nice old gentleman, takes pity on him. This sets Fagin and the brutal Bill Sikes (Oliver Reed) off on a kidnapping plot.
Reed does his best to open up the stage play for cinema. However, the realistic Victorian production values clash with the overblown choreography, many times performing by a cast of thousands. It may have seemed better had it not been surrounded by so many good Code-busting movies in 1968.
Onna White won an Honorary Oscar for her “outstanding choreography achievement”. Oliver! won Academy Awards in the categories of Best Picture; Best Director; Best Art Direction – Set Decoration; Best Sound and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture. It was nominated in the categories of Best Actor (Moody); Best Supporting Actor (Wild); Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium; Best Cinematography; Best Costume Design; and Best Film Editing.