Oliver - The Oscar Project Part XLI

Finally, the fourth and final Oscar winning musical from the 60’s, “Oliver.” Surprisingly another musical I had little information about. I had only really seen the opening scene with the porridge and my only other experience was Joey from “Friends” trying out for Fagan in an episode. I knew it was about orphans that robbed people while they sang happy songs and in general was a light hearted musical.

“Oliver” tells the story of an orphan named Oliver that eventually escapes to London where he takes up with a gang of other child robbers. Fun was had and songs were song. Then Oliver gets caught by the cops. However he is quick to be let go into the hands of a wealthy citizen who we later here he is related to. Eventually, Fagan, the leader of the gang of child thieves, and Billy, the really evil adult guy, come after Oliver because they are worried that he will turn them in. However, he has no plans to. Eventually the story turns dark and characters are threatened and killed and by the end of the story, Oliver gets a happy ending.

Overall the movie was decently put together. I found that Fagan was played incredibly well, but there weren’t really a lot of other standouts. The music and plot were decent, but it really felt like two separate movies. The first act was a fun story about robbing orphans while the second half took this really dark turn. Like it expected the audience to age 10 years during the intermission. It was a little jarring and it would have served the movie better to incorporate both tones throughout the movie. I actually liked both of these movies but I didn’t feel like they belonged together.

Overall if you have kids watch the first half and then let them watch the second half when they are older. It’s like turning off “Old Yeller” before, well, you know. Anyways it was definitely the best of the 4 musicals from the 60’s in my opinion. I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.