Orphaned Oliver (Mark Lester) escapes his dreary life in the workhouse and as an indentured servant and heads for London. There he meets up with pickpocket The Artful Dodger (Jack Wild) and Fagin (Ron Moody), who runs an army of child-criminals. When his first time on a job goes wrong, Oliver is taken to court, where he’s put into the care of kindly Mr. Brownlow (Joseph O’Conor). But murderer Bill Sikes (Oliver Reed) wants Oliver back in the hands of the criminals, leaving only Nancy (Shani Wallis), Bill’s girlfriend, to help him.
Time has not been kind to the reputation of Oliver! Nor has winning the Oscar over 2001: A Space Odyssey. But everything doesn’t have to be in the newest style; sometimes an old fashioned musical is just the ticket. As for winning, that’s hardly its fault.
Oliver! is a solid musical film, with a satire-ridden plot courtesy of Charles Dickens, colorful supporting characters portrayed by charismatic actors (in a year without The Lion in Winter, I’d be looking at Ron Moody for Best Supporting Actor), and it’s gorgeous. It has something else that the other big musicals of the time didn’t: more than one memorable song. It’s filled with toe-tapping numbers (Consider Yourself, Be Back Soon), and some that tear at your heart (Boy For Sale, As Long as He Needs Me) and one that makes me laugh (Reviewing the Situation), and one that’s simply beautiful (Who Will Buy). There are no bad songs and a whole bunch of catchy ones.
This is a gripping and emotional film. It’s hard to find someone more loathsome, more hateable than Bill Sikes, nor anyone easier to love than Nancy. And I feel for Fagin. Oliver! plays all the emotional notes and they all sound true.
Yes, not everything works, mainly Oliver himself. Lester is not a talented child actor and his dubbed singing voice is surprisingly weak. But there’s little anyone could have done with the part, as even in Dickens the character is passive, bouncing about in the stream. He’s a breathing McGuffin. He’s a hole in the center, but all the characters around him are so indelible that it’s a minor flaw as it gives an excuse to focus on them. The more time with Fagin, Nancy, The Artful Dodger, and Bill, the better.
One complaint I’ve seen is that the character of Fagin, and to a lesser extent, all of the criminals except Bill, are made redeemable (or redeemed). But I don’t see this as a problem, but as an improvement. Oliver Twist was a satire of the British class structure, but it has a whiff of that classism, with Oliver being the only non-despicable person of the lower classes (well, partly Nancy), and he’s born with blue blood. Even for Dickens, everyone had a place. So a little change works wonders.
As for Fagin, in the book he’s a cruel, sadistic, greedy monster, compared to the devil. And of course, he’s Jewish, which is noted over and over again. So…a soulless, greedy Jew… Yeah. The musical is 100 times less anti-Semitic, which I call a needed alteration. It also allows for wonderful emotional moments and humor with Fagin, who becomes the most complicated character in the story.
Oliver! isn’t one of the great musical films, but it’s a very good one, and in the last few years of the 1960s, it easily stands over its competition of Sweet Charity, Hello, Dolly, Paint Your Wagon, Funny Girl, and Finian’s Rainbow.