Plot Intro
Small Victorian orphan (Mark Lester) makes his way from a concentration-camp-esque workhouse to the ebullient streets of merry old London town, where he becomes embroiled in an organised crime gang of street urchins led by Fagin (Ron Moody) and the Artful Dodger (Jack Wild), as well as the abusive Bill Sikes (Oliver Reed) and hair-straight-out-of-Woodstock Nancy (Shani Wallis).
This is our fourth and final musical to win Best Picture in the ‘60s. It’s also our very last musical until Chicago in 2002. After a lengthy run of vibrant, Christmas-Day-with-the-family pieces, things are about to take a turn for the darker. And the beauty of Oliver! is that, unlike its most recent predecessors, The Sound of Music and My Fair Lady, there’s a dirty, nasty rottenness to it that displays the way films were heading in this era of social liberation and changing values.
I’ve often heard over the years from Very Disparaging People that Oliver! is an excessively softened-down rewrite of Dickens’ original novel. The opening titles themselves state that the musical has been adapted “freely”, and this is true to some extent. Oliver’s long-lost brother, Monks, is removed entirely; Nancy’s prostitution and syphilis-riddled complexion have been hastily omitted; Fagin is far more clownish than his snivelling, immoral Dickensian counterpart and references to his Jewishness are rightfully gone (Dickens refers to Fagin as “the Jew” more than he uses the character’s real name); and, let’s face it, those young boys are far too well-fed and rosy-cheeked to be living a life on the mean streets of Victorian London.
However, having not seen this film for many years, a re-viewing after reading the novel has shown just how much of Dickens’ gritty realism has been left in. This is a far-cry from white-teethed Gene Kelly and the ballet dances of West Side Story. Nancy’s murder is just as horrifying as the book, where her battering to death is described with Tarantino-esque detail; physical and psychological abuse of children ranges from throwing Oliver into a coffin to beating him with a belt to kidnapping him and eventually forcing him to climb onto a beam several storeys off the ground; and Nancy and Sikes’ relationship is a case of classic domestic abuse (Nancy should have been on the phone to the Samaritans long before it got this far).
And, like all the great Dickens stories, it’s the villains of the piece that make it worth your while. Oliver Reed used to terrify me as a child and he still has an unstable, semi-inebriated glower that sends chills down your spine. Ron Moody’s Fagin is a masterclass in body language and comedy-meets-darkness. And Harry Secombe’s Mr Bumble is briefer than you might think bearing in mind he is the one who yells out the classic “MOOOOORE?!” I’d also forgotten how much I enjoy Nancy. Shani Wallis has that hard-faced, gravel-voiced look that we see in Eastenders regularly. Gone is the white-washed, artificial glamour and innocence of Leslie Caron and Julie Andrews. This 60s, bra-burning, pint-pouring Nancy is more like Valerie Solanas than Maria Von Trapp.
Oliver! may be the sort of musical that your Grandma falls asleep to on Christmas Day with half a pint of sherry spilling down her legs, but the dark streak to it is refreshing and powerful. For years, I thought that nothing could beat The Sound of Music for an example of perfectly exuberant film-making, but now I feel it has a rival. Oliver! is a soaring, emotional, lively piece that deserves the legacy it has made. If you haven’t seen it, you’re missing out.
Highlight
“Who Will Buy” is an astonishing set piece, building up from one woman selling roses, to literally hundreds of extras all showcasing various Victorian ways of life. It’s easy to see why London tourism sky-rocketed after the release of this film.
Lowlight
A pernickety point, but Mark Lester is a notoriously weak lead. Awkward and lacking in spontaneity compared to Jack Wild’s effortlessness as the Artful Dodger.
Mark
10/10
Oliver! is a fascinating musical film for a variety of reasons. It is almost certainly the most inventive and groundbreaking of our musicals so far, and it pulls off the remarkable feat of having mostly jolly tunes with a sordid darkness seeping through underneath. Much like the juddering wooden steps that creak ominously above a muddy sinkhole, we get given a dazzling energetic film full of fabulous choreography and huge ensemble pieces (‘Who Will Buy’ always deserves a shout out for its sublime build up), which then has sudden jolting moments of darkness coming through - Bill Sikes takes off his belt to whip Oliver, Fagin’s friendly countenance fades to reveal a snivelling rat-like scrambling, and of course Nancy betrays Oliver and dies trying to put it right.
It’s an innovative film for the ways in which it achieves this. A massive part of how director Carol Reed did this is through camera angles. During ‘I’d Do Anything’, Nancy and the boys sing and dance imitating the hoi polloi of London society. But what is usually a cheery spirited song takes on a melancholy aspect through the placing of cameras low down by the floor and high up in the rafters - we see the orphan boys pretending to be something that they never will be, and the angles allow you to see the dirty decaying surroundings more fully, bringing home the fact that these people will live and die in this squalor, able to access higher society only through mocking it.
It’s been cut extraordinarily well too. The stage show features a host more songs (all of which are very good) but here it’s been reduced to the best and most plot-driving ones, and in the most sublime move, ‘Oom Pah Pah’ has been taken from just being a song that Nancy sings, to being a song that Nancy actively uses to get the pub dancing to cover her stealing Oliver away. It’s Shani Wallis’s finest moment, her eyes darting nervously as she desperately stirs the pub up into a dancing commotion and imbuing a normally slap-your-thigh song with real tension.
And Wallis is fabulous. The old standard ‘As Long As He Needs Me’ actually feels dull through its familiarity - her Nancy’s finest work comes through far more subtle moments. During ‘It’s A Fine Life’ she cheerfully sings ‘Though you sometimes do come by/ the occasional black eye/ you can always cover one / ’til he blacks the other one/ but you don’t dare cry.’ Wallis somehow conveys - though beaming and dancing - an inner exhaustion. She is trapped in this circle and in love with a monster (Oliver Reed in a monotone, terrifying performance). Her performance is only topped by the masterclass that is Ron Moody’s Fagin. He delivers a performance of so many layers that you are left quite bedazzled. Singing ‘Reviewing the Situation’ to a very expressive owl, he keeps you on your toes, laughing and sorrowful in equal measure.
So it’s a cracking film, very well put together, full of fabulous songs, darkness seeping up through the purposefully upbeat music, and some utterly sublime performances. Why have I not given it a ten? It’s one reason only. The lead Mark Lester is atrocious.
Paul mentioned it, but I found it so much more off putting. The child cannot act, he cannot sing, his voice is that of a well-educated angelic little thing, and ultimately he is so awful that you get the feeling that Carol Reed actively tried to make him appear less. During the 10+ minute long ‘Who Will Buy’ he gets about one verse and then they cut to him for a second-long reaction about twice in the whole thing. And while Oliver!’s main character is actually Fagin (in the stage revival, the whole design focused around Fagin’s hat and pipe) you can’t help wishing they’d had a child actor of Jack Wild’s talent. A shame.
Highlight
It’s a toss-up between Ron Moody’s entire performance, or the extraordinary re-imagining of ‘Oom Pah Pah’ as a tense set-piece with Shani Wallis stirring up mayhem.
Lowlight
Mark Lester (see above)
Mark
9/10 (a mark deducted for Lester's awfulness)
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