Oliver! (film)

Oliver!
File:68a.jpg The film poster by Howard Terpning
Directed by	Carol Reed
Written by	Charles Dickens (novel) Vernon Harris
Produced by	John Woolf
Starring	Mark Lester Ron Moody Shani Wallis Oliver Reed, Jack Wild
Cinematography	Oswald Morris
Edited by	Ralph Kemplen
Music by	Johnny Green Eric Rogers Onna White
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release dates	September 26, 1968
Running time	153 min.
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Oliver! is a 1968 musical film directed by Carol Reed. The film is based on the stage musical Oliver!, with book, music and lyrics written by Lionel Bart. The screenplay was written by Vernon Harris.

Both the film and play are based on the famous Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist. The musical includes several musical standards, including "Food, Glorious Food", "Consider Yourself", "As Long as He Needs Me", "You've Got to Pick a Pocket or Two", "Oom-Pah-Pah" and "Where is Love?".

The film version was a Romulus Films production and was distributed internationally by Columbia Pictures. It was filmed in Shepperton Film Studio in Surrey.

In 1968 Oliver! won six Academy Awards, including awards for Best Picture, Carol Reed Best Director.

Background

File:Oliver!'68.jpg

l-r: Mark Lester as Oliver, Ron Moody as Fagin and Jack Wild as The Artful Dodger.

The film used a mixture of young unknowns and 'big names': Ron Moody (Fagin), Oliver Reed (Bill Sikes), Harry Secombe (Mr Bumble), Mark Lester (Oliver), Jack Wild (Dodger), Shani Wallis (Nancy) and Joseph O'Conor as Mr. Brownlow. Ron Moody recreated his London stage performance, after Peter Sellers, Dick Van Dyke and Peter O'Toole reportedly turned down the role.

The screenplay was adapted from both Lionel Bart's play and Dickens's novel by Vernon Harris, and directed by Sir Carol Reed, who was also Oliver Reed's uncle. A few of the songs from the stage production were not used in the movie, although they often make appearances in the incidental music. For example, the music of Sikes' song "My Name" can be heard when the character first appears, and several other times whenever he is about to commit some nefarious deed.

The film also included extended choreography sequences not found in the original show, and some additional scenes which expanded the role of Bill Sikes, making him closer to the Sikes of the original Dickens novel. In the stage version, he did not even make his entrance until the second act. The songs that Sikes sang in the stage version were omitted.

Shooting at Shepperton Film Studios, England, began on June 23, 1967.

Differences between stage and film version

The film changed some aspects of the musical's plotline.

• Oliver's trial and exoneration after being arrested for stealing Brownlow's wallet were shown, with Nancy secretly attending it. (In the play, Nancy does not attend Oliver's trial, which takes place offstage - presumably between Acts I and II.) Nearly all of the dialogue in this sequence was taken directly from Dickens's novel. The magistrate Mr. Fang, who does not appear in the stage musical, was added to the film, identified simply as "The Magistrate" , and portrayed by Hugh Griffith in a cameo appearance. The magistrate, rather than being depicted as cruel, as in Dickens's novel, was played with a humorous touch as an incompetent drunkard who is so hungover that he is scarcely aware of the goings-on inside the courtroom.
• Sikes was introduced into the story much earlier, and Oliver, rather than being unconscious while Sikes kills Nancy, is a witness to her murder (which, in the film, was made unusually dramatic for what was supposed to be a family musical).
• The film contains a scene in which Sikes forces Oliver to help him burgle a house. The scene, not found in the original stage version, is basically taken from a similar episode in the Dickens novel; however, the outcome is slightly different.
• The song "Oom Pah Pah" was moved to a late spot in the second half of the film, rather than being placed at the beginning of the second half. It is sung by Nancy at the tavern in order to divert Bill Sikes's attention and get the tavern crowd dancing, so that she can use it as camouflage to sneak Oliver to London Bridge and back to Mr. Brownlow. The ruse, of course, fails - Bill's bull terrier, who had been guarding Oliver, begins to bark and alerts him. Bill secretly follows them and surprises them at the bridge.
• Sikes's final attempt to escape does not take place at London Bridge as in the stage version, but on the rooftops of London, as the crowd below watches while Sikes forces Oliver to balance himself on a dangerously thin wooden hoist and loop a rope around it so that he (Sikes) can swing from one rooftop to another. The idea of Sikes taking Oliver as a hostage over the rooftop was taken, not from Dickens's novel, but from David Lean's 1948 film version of Oliver Twist, although in the Lean film, Oliver tied the rope to a chimney, instead of looping it over a hoist. Lean was, according to one of his biographers, deeply hurt that a fellow director whom he regarded highly (Carol Reed) would borrow a significant plot development from him without acknowledging it in the film's credits (the credits for Oliver! merely say Screenplay by Vernon Harris freely adapted from Charles Dickens's "Oliver Twist"). In the Lean film, Sikes is wounded, and the pain causes him to lose his grip and accidentally hang himself; in Oliver!, when Sikes is shot, the rope is around his waist rather than his neck; the shot itself kills him, so he does not hang himself.
• The so-called "fourth wall" finale, in which all the characters sang a medley of three of the songs, was completely eliminated so as to not destroy the impact of the final scenes, although Fagin and the Artful Dodger are last seen humorously reprising "Reviewing the Situation" (with additional lyrics written for the film), and dancing off happily to continue their life of crime. The closing credits are seen against a replay of part of the "Consider Yourself" sequence, in which we see the chorus singing and dancing.
• Although Sikes clubs Nancy to death, as in the original London and Broadway productions of the show, he kills her offscreen. In the stage production, because of the set design, the actors are always in full view of the audience, so the beating had to be staged in a highly artificial way (with no blood). Later productions have changed it so that she is strangled, making the scene more realistic.
• The film adds a poignant moment minutes before Nancy is killed by Sikes at London Bridge. Nancy and Oliver share a farewell embrace; seconds later Sikes appears and tries to grab him, but Nancy tries to force Sikes away, which angers him even more and leads to her murder. This is now retained in some stage productions of the musical.

Reception

Oliver! received extremely favourable reviews. It was hailed by Pauline Kael in her The New Yorker review as being one of the few film versions of a stage musical that was superior to the original show, which she, according to her own review of the film, had walked out on.

Songs

• Overture (heard before the film begins)
• Main Title (heard over the opening title sequence)
• Food, Glorious Food/Oliver!
• Boy For Sale
• Where is Love?
• Consider Yourself
• Pick a Pocket or Two
• It's a Fine Life
• I'd Do Anything
• Be Back Soon
• Entr'acte (heard during the film's intermission, just before the second half begins)
• Who Will Buy?
• As Long As He Needs Me
• Reviewing the Situation
• Oom-Pah-Pah
• Reviewing the Situation (reprise)
• Finale (Where Is Love?/Consider Yourself)
• Exit Music (heard after the Finale, while the audience is filing out of the movie theatre showing the film)

The words and music were written by Lionel Bart, and were supervised, arranged and conducted by John Green.

The pre-credits Overture as heard on the actual soundtrack of the film is not included on the soundtrack album. Instead, an abbreviated version of the Main Title is labeled "Overture". For the convenience of the original LP, the order of some of the songs was shuffled, but this was not corrected on the CD issue; instead, the film soundtrack CD is an exact duplicate of the LP - nothing on the CD has been expanded to its full-length, as on other CD soundtrack albums. The movie's soundtrack was originally issued in the US on Colgems Records; it was later reissued on compact disc on the RCA Records label.

• Mark Lester's singing voice in Oliver! (1968) was dubbed by Kathe Green, the daughter of Johnny Green, the musical director on the film. Kathe was brought in when it was found the singing voice of Mark Lester wasn't quite what was wanted for the song "Where Is Love?"., although this was not made public until 1988 during an interview with Johnny Green on the 20th anniversary of the film (he stated that Mark Lester was "tone deaf and arrhythmic"). He originally had two boys set to dub his singing but during post production it was felt that their voices didn't match Mark's look, so they used Johnny's daughter instead.

Awards

The film garnered 11 Academy Award nominations and won 6:

• Best Picture
• Best Director, Carol Reed
• Best Music, Score of a Musical Picture (Original or Adaptation)
• Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (John Box, Terence Marsh, Vernon Dixon, Ken Muggleston)
• Best Sound
• A special Academy Award was awarded to Onna White for her elaborate choreography.

It was also nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Ron Moody), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Jack Wild), Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.

Oliver! was the only G-rated film to be honored with an Academy Award for Best Picture (the following year saw the only X-rated film to win a Best Picture Oscar: Midnight Cowboy, which was re-rated R two years later). Oliver! was also the last musical to win the Best Picture Oscar until Chicago 34 years later.

External links

• Oliver! at IMDb
• Oliver! at AllMovie
• Oliver! at the TCM Movie Database

Bryant Peel is trying out for Dodger in SEACT's production of "!OLIVER!" GET TICKETS AT dothan.org.