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Title:	Oliver! (1968)
Studio Line:	Columbia TriStar - Much more than a musical! Experience the high-spirited adventures of Oliver Twist in this Oscar-winning musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' classic tale! Young Oliver is an orphan who escapes the cheerless life of the workhouse and takes to the streets of 19th-century London. He's immediately taken by a band of street urchins, headed by the lovable Fagin, his fiendish henchman Bill Sikes and his loyal apprentice The Artful Dodger. Through his education in the fine points of pick-pocketing, Oliver makes away with an unexpected treasure…a home and a family of his own.
Director:	Carol Reed
Cast:	Ron Moody, Shani Wallis, Oliver Reed, Harry Secombe, Mark Lester, Jack Wild
Academy Awards:	Won for Best Picture; Best Director; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration; Best Music-Johnny Greene; Best Sound. Nominated for Best Actor-Ron Moody; Best Supporting Actor-Jack Wild; Best Cinematography; Best Screenplay; Best Costume Design; Best Film Editing, 1969.
DVD:	Widescreen 2.35:1/16x9; audio English DD 5.1, French Dolby Surround; subtitles English, French; closed-captioned; double sided - single layered; 16 chapters; rated G; 146 min.; $27.95; street date 8/11/98.
Supplements:	Featurette; Photo Gallery.
Purchase:	DVD | Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens | Original Broadway Soundtrack

Picture/Sound/Extras: B-/B-/C As I recall, I took in a screening of Oliver! as a very young child, and it was something I'd remembered semi-positively, largely because my father thought it was such a great movie. I didn't see it again until it was shown to us during my eighth grade English class. Well, whatever positive thoughts I had about the film prior to that time went straight out the window. This was 19 years ago now (that's a depressing thought!) so I don't remember what specifically I disliked about Oliver! other than I just thought it sucked. (Really, what more do you need when you're fourteen?) Surely age has mellowed me somewhat and I'd be more receptive to the giddy charms of Oliver! at this stage of my life. And you know what? I still dislike the film as much as I did when I was fourteen. (Had you going for a minute there, didn't I? You saw that "but you know what" and thought I was going to say I liked it, didn't you? Hah!) Clearly I've matured over the last 19 years since I can now better articulate why I disliked Oliver!. When I was fourteen, all I thought was that it "sucked." Now that I'm 33 I can fully recognize that it "really sucks." As strange as it is to say this about a film "freely adapted" (as the credits say) from a classic novel, Oliver! seems frightfully thin on plot and it also appears radically overextended. It doesn't seem like a whole lot happens during the film's two and a half hour running time, certainly not enough to sustain such a length; we get maybe an hour's worth of actual story at best. The rest of the time is filled with the movie's fourteen - yes, that's right, fourteen - musical numbers. The cloying little ditties of Oliver! are absolutely inescapable. Let's see... 153 minutes divided by fourteen songs equals one song every ten minutes or so. But these aren't brief, two or three minute quickies, so it's not like you get one song for every seven or so minutes of story. No, lots of these numbers go on and on (and on, and on); literally the first two-thirds of the film consist almost totally of music with very little spoken dialogue. I suppose this is okay if you enjoy musicals. Unfortunately, I maintain a great distaste for the format; I think they work okay within a Disney framework but they usually seem ridiculous when portrayed in the live action realm. Oliver! seems to be an even more egregious offender than most musicals simply because of the sheer volume and the pointlessness of most of the songs; it's clear many exist simply to fill space. Most of them go on far too long, as well; almost every number tries to be a "show stopper" as the cast of thousands dances and warbles across the screen. Maybe musical fans eat this up, but I'd think even they would get tired of it. I certainly know that I did. If the excessive amount of time devoted to music wasn't enough to turn me off Oliver! the acting would have done the trick. Oliver! was adapted from a stage musical, and it shows in the performances; it's unclear to me how many of the actors got their start on the stage, but almost all of them over-emote and use tricks that seem much better suited to the broadness required by the stage. In this regard, I found almost all of the adult actors to be at fault. Ron Moody as Fagin, Shani Wallis as Nancy, Harry Secombe as Mr. Bumble - you could practically see them pause as they wait for the laughter or applause to die down before they deliver their next lines. I doubt they could have made a sequel to Oliver!; they would have wanted to reuse the sets, but they were destroyed by the scenery-chewing of these actors. Looked to me like they all needed Ritalin. The only adult who fared acceptably was Oliver Reed as Bill Sikes. He offered an appropriate air of menace and danger. Well, at least until he opened his mouth; he worked much better as a looming presence than as an active - and verbal - threat. It didn't help that he socks Nancy with one of the least believable movie punches I've ever seen - I don't think his hand was within a foot of her face! At least Reed gets off without a song, which may have been the only bit of conservative thinking in this production; clearly it would have been much harder to view Sikes as much of a villain if he spent his time singing and dancing. The remainder of the lead cast features two children, Mark Lester as Oliver and Jack Wild as the Artful Dodger. Lester is a fairly bland kid who seems to have gotten the role mainly because he's so darned cute, but he made for a mildly compelling presence; I almost sort of cared about him from time to time. Wild is less successful, if just because he has the more interesting character; his Dodger lacks the charm and magnetism that he needs, and he largely tends to blend into the scenery. Really, the best piece of acting in the film comes from the dog who plays Sikes' sidekick Bullseye. Toward the end of the movie he sees just how brutal Sikes really is and he turns on him; that dog truly conveyed his conflicting emotions as he decided to do the right thing. He's the scraggliest looking mutt I've ever seen, but Bullseye is the only participant who shows any realistic emotions or any actual character development. Bullseye rules! Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the film. It's an overly long, uninteresting mockery of a classic novel. What was the Academy smoking when they saw fit to name Oliver! Best Picture of 1968, and can I get some? That must have been some good stuff! The DVD: Oliver! appears in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1 on this double-sided, single-layered DVD - that's right, it's a flipper! The image has been enhanced for 16X9 televisions. Although the picture displays some faults, it nonetheless offers a fairly satisfying visual experience. My main complaints were that it sometimes looked flat or drab, and some scenes appeared a bit soft. Really, however, it's a film that spends most of its time looking decent but unspectacular; it never looked better than pretty good, and it never looked worse than so-so. Focus remained fairly sharp, the image (though not free of faults) seemed pretty clean, and the colors looked accurate and occasionally bright and bold. All in all it's a fair but not great transfer. The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack of Oliver! seems mildly ambitious but somewhat flat. Dialogue and effects sounded clean, but the music seemed tinny and less full. The music didn't appear terrible, but it definitely should have sounded better. The front soundstage is nicely broad; music and some effects emanated from the right and left channels. The surrounds also got a little bit of a workout, though not much; Oliver! reserves the rears for occasional (mono) effects like rain or birds tweeting, and for vocal choruses during songs (no actual music other than massed vocals appeared to come out of the rears). I admit that I found the sound to be a bit disappointing. Still, while the audio isn't great, it's definitely pretty good for a more than 30 year old film. Oliver! offers a decent array of supplements, though it's nothing that will give you convulsions of excitement. We get an entertaining seven-minute featurette from 1968; it's not exactly detailed - how much can you say in seven minutes? - but it isn't as "fluffy" as more current featurettes tend to be. The DVD also includes the standard trailer - yawn - plus a surprisingly good photo gallery. The latter was especially interesting because the pictures were nicely annotated; they each offered some useful information about the production. The DVD's booklet also packs a strong amount of entertaining facts into its two pages; who knew that Lester's singing was dubbed by the musical director's daughter? I dare say that the production notes and the photo gallery were much more entertaining than the film itself! Oliver! brings relatively good image and audio to the table, plus a few brief but interesting extras, but boy, is it an awful movie! If your heart is set on Oliver!, there's nothing so wrong with the DVD that I can tell you not to get it; while it clearly could have been better, it still offers adequate quality in all areas. If you're uncertain, then pass on it; the accumulated wisdom of my 33 years tells me that it really sucks! Menu: DVD Movie Guide | Archive | Top