Oliver! Is a
musical motion picture based on the stage musical of the same name which is
turn is based on Charles Dickens’ Oliver
Twist. The movie version, released in 1968 won six Oscars from eleven
nominations and forty-five years later remains one of the most popular musicals
of all time. I have some problems with the central character and the acting and
if I’m honest I can’t stand the overblown amateur dramatic feeling to some of
the scenes but even I must say that Oliver!
features a great story and some wonderful direction. The songs also do nothing
for me but the final act is built up towards a tense and surprisingly
terrifying conclusion.
Oliver Twist (Mark Lester) is an orphan, living in that
wickedest of Victorian institutions, the Workhouse. He is sold to an Undertaker
but mistreated and escapes to London
where he falls in with a pickpocket called Artful Dodger (Jack Wild) and his
boss/carer Fagin (Ron Moody). Oliver is caught and tried for a crime he didn’t
commit and taken into the care of a wealthy benefactor but worried he will talk
about who and what he has seen, fiendish criminal Bill Sykes (Oliver Reed) is
desperate to take him back to Fagin.
