Oliver! (1968)

This musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist is about an orphan who is constantly hungry.  He asks for some more gruel at the orphanage.  They kick him out.  Then he picks a pocket or two with the help of the Artful Dodger.  

First, this movie BEAT Funny Girl! What the heck?  This in no way, shape, or form compares to the quality in Funny Girl.  FG is much more polished.  AND BARBRA! She's brilliant!! Her single performance in FG is better than the entirety of Oliver! So why do I dislike Oliver!? WELLLL first of all, the musical is bogus.  The book is not a fun, light book.  It's depressing.  Trying to make a fun musical about orphans is weird but in the last thirty minutes shit gets real.  I mean dying whores real!  It really is the most bipolar musical.  Annie really takes this idea and perfects it.  I mean it's a hard knock life but the end of Annie is so happy.  ANd it's just too cute to be sad.  Oliver! just ends... and not with an exclamation mark.  Before you think that I am ripping Oliver! to shreds, I was in this play.  AND I had to listen to the music every day for one whole summer.  I mean, I was the Rose Seller... VERY VERY important!  Jeeeeez! And if you are ever bored and want to try and find a video online with me doing an Oliver meets Elephant Man impression, I'm pretty sure it's why Tim fell so deep in love with me...

Where to begin? First of all, Oliver! is a perfectly okay film but the show itself is doomed at the drawing board. Most of the works of Charles Dickens don’t seem to lend themselves well to musicals and even in the narrow realm of musicals about beggars are there many better options, like Annie or The Newsies. Sure, these may be the happiest poor people since Burt in Mary Poppins but of course they’re hungry; think of all the calories that are needlessly burned by all that singing and dancing. Katie’s claim that this film is bipolar is best represented by how the fun and jaunty “Oom-Pah-Pah” song is almost immediately followed by Nancy being beaten to death by Sikes. The chase for Sikes goes on about ten minutes too long and oddly feels like the end of Frankenstein with all the torches and yelling. All this aside, there is one upsetting fact that ruins the whole film: Mark Lester, the child who plays Oliver, did not do his own singing in the film because he couldn’t carry a rhythm or a tune. He was overdubbed by the daughter (!?) of the music arranger/supervisor of the film. So this kid was cast as the titular character of a musical, stepping over the dozens of talented boys in the cast and they couldn’t even overdub him with one of those kids. Once you know this fact, you can’t ignore how Oliver’s thin singing voice is a girl and the movie is ruined. There may be a reason why a musical didn’t win Best Picture for 34 years after this. Ultimately, this film is more memorable but also far more frustrating than Gigi and I will be hard pressed to watch it again.

The first film with an MPAA rating to win an Academy Award for Best Picture. 

Oliver Twist: Please sir, I want some more.