OLIVER!

OLIVER! A Romulus Production in Panavision and Technicolor; with Ron Moody, Oliver Reed, Shani Wallis, Mark Lester, and Jack Wild; music and lyrics by Lionel Bart; written for the screen by Vernon Harris; production designed by John Box; choreography by Onna White; director of photography Oswald Morris; directed by Sir Carol Reed.

The major problem with Sir Carol Reed’s movie version of the stage hit OLIVER! is one of priorities. Reed and his production designer and his choreographer seem to have been so determined human values of the Dickens story . For example, & high point of the stage production was the heroine Nancy’s singing of “As Long As He Needs Me,” which came after a savagely brutal scene in which she was beaten by her lover, Bill Sykes, the Villain, In the production I saw, as she began to sing, the stage darkened except for a spotlight on her. The song, then sung in a highly personal manner almost directly to the audience, lost ist explanatory' overtones and became what used to be known as a torch song, but wigh a lot more soul. It was an electrifying moment of theatre which stopped the show cold and won the actress a full three minutes of sustained applause.

The same scene in the movie is curiously remote, as Nancy^ fetchingly played by Shani Wallis, wanders through a London back alley as she sings. The song emerges^ as the explanation of her feelings it basically is, and we get some dandy, views of back-alley London. But the scene lacks, the dramatic^' human intensity of the staged scene.

If you . can pierce the dehumanizing barrier j of the exterior production values to relate with the characters (and you should be able to with a minimum of trouble), OLIVER! can be a thoroughly entertaining movie* somewhat a rarity in these days of “shock-it-to-‘em” pictures.

The production values, although tending, as \ . have said, to dehumanize the story, are nonetheless fascinatirig. Nineteenth century London has been recreated in astounding detail by John Box, who also recreated Moscow for DOCTOR ZHIVAGO. Box’s London is filled with meat-packing plants, travelling carnivals, and elevated railways, row upon row of wealthy houses and ponded parks. Within this framework, choreographer Onna White has set in rythmic motion all the news-hawkers, . fish-mongers, bobbies, and peddlars who would inhabit such a. London. Box and Miss White have managed to create some of the most lavish production numbers I’Ve ever seen on the screen, and one finds it hard not to be engulfed by the spectacle of it all, especially in the “Consider Yourself’ number which, coming about twenty minutes into the .movie,..really gets tiie story started (I found the first twenty minutes terribly pretentious, with predictable cliches and tons of rusty irony).

The major roles have, with few exceptions, been perfectly cast. Outstanding is Ron Moody as Fagin, the perverse (he’s a pederast, I’m sure) Jewish headmaster of the group of young pick-pockets. Moody is a sensational performer (he created the role of Fagin on the stage) whose limbs seem to have lives of their own, seemingly determined to move in whichever direction they want,* but Moody is especially outstanding in two numbers, “You’ve Got To Pick a Pocket or Two,” and “I’m Reviewong The Situation.” His performance comes close to stopping the show (if such a thing is possible in cinema, and I think it is).

Second only to Moody is young (he’s fifteen) Jack Wild as the Artful Dodger, chief of Fagin’s partners in crime (would you believe the role was played in New York by Mpnkee David Jones?). Wild is the word “imp” personified whether nonchalantly picking a pocket or leading the crowd in the “Consider Yourself’number. He is alniost a younger Moody, and the final shot of the two dancing merrily down the street into the sunrise is probably the most memorable image in the movie. Both Moody and Wild have been nominated for Academy Awards.

In the non-singing role of Bill Sykes, Oliver Reed (the director’s nephew) is properly menacing and malevolent. As Nancy, Shani Wallis, best known as a. pight-club singer, displays a knack for acting, too, and indicates we’ll probably be seeing her in future musicals.

In the title role, Mark Lester is just too cute for me. With angelic face and voice to match, he would be more at home with Julie Andrews in the Alps than in Charles Dickens’ evil London. To be sure, the role of Oliver requires innocence, but filmmakers have a tendency to confuse sweetness with innocence.

I thought Oswald Morris’ photography to be surprisingly substndard, considering some of the things being done with color film nowadays (witness D6CTOR ZHIVAGO, or even Morris’ own THE TAMING OF THE SHREW with the Burtons).

Sir Carol Reed’s direction is fluid, yet controlled—an indication he was trying to make a film musical. Though OLIVER! fails at film, it succeeds magnificently as movie, probalby the best musical ever made.

About the only thing really wrong with OLIVER! is the inflated prices , being charged for admission.