Oliver!

Quick – what did Sir Carol Reed win his Oscar for? If you answered The Third Man, The Fallen Idol, or any of his acknowledged masterpieces you’d be wrong. In fact, Reed didn’t win his Oscar until late in his career during the height of the Academy’s obsession with two different things: musicals and all things British.

Enter into that atmosphere Oliver! An all-singing, all-dancing version of Charles Dickens’ well-known story of a street urchin finding a happy ending. The 60s were a busy period of Hollywood snatching Broadway productions and recreating them to a zealously faithful degree.

Not only did we get My Fair Lady, West Side Story, and The Sound of Music as transplants and Best Picture winners, but The Music Man, Funny Girl, and Hello, Dolly! as nominees. Musicals were a beloved institution by this point and some of those films managed to emerge from the pack as some of the best of the best while others have found their luster diminish with time.

Oliver!, a bit like The Music Man, occupies a nebulous grey zone between these twin poles. Sure, West Side Story and My Fair Lady are acknowledged classics, but Oliver! felt alternately grim for the movie musical and behind the times for 1968. It’s well-made, mostly well-acted, and filled with memorable songs and sequences but there’s a hole in the center of the movie.

Not to pick on a child actor, but that’s exactly what I’m about to do. Mark Lester is such a blank that he can’t manage to compete or even hold his own against Jack Wild’s Artful Dodger, Ron Moody’s Fagin, or Oliver Reed’s Bill Sikes. He feels like a cinematic creation from an entirely different era, like the wide-eyed stiffs that populate MGM films from the 30s. His voice is obviously dubbed, and his performance is so saintly and bland that Oliver Twist barely registers as a character. He’s merely a cipher for the various nefarious characters to react against and move the plot forward.

While Oliver Reed is clearly no musical star himself, they wisely jettisoned Sikes few songs and let Reed project a potent combination of sexuality and dark charisma in his role. You understand why Shani Wallis’ Nancy seems enthralled and hypnotized by his magnetic pull, and why the street urchins and Fagin find him a scarily volatile presence that must be gingerly interacted with. Its performances like his and Moody’s charming loser take on Fagin and Wild’s charismatic and adorable pickpocket.

Actually, Oliver! is at its best when our attention is redirected towards Wild and Moody almost exclusively as a never-to-be redeemed father/son-like pair. If only we had ended the movie there! All things considered, Oliver! is a near-masterpiece that survived the (often) adaptation process better than numerous other works. It’s a well oiled machined that features plenty of playful whistling past the graveyard.