So, "Oliver!" the 1968 film version of the musical adaptation of "Oliver Twist" by Charles Dickens popped up on TCM as part of the 31 Days of Oscar, which is only natural, as it racked up six of those statuettes including Best Picture.
I know I saw "Oliver!" when I was a kid and didn't really care for it (I think I resented it as supposedly being good for me from a cultural standpoint - I was more excited to see "The Love Bug") and I don't think I've seen it since, so I thought why not watch it as I'll probably enjoy it.
But, you know, I didn't think it was that great. Not bad, but not brilliant.
I think my main beef was that I didn't like the songs all that much (sorry, Lionel Bart!) and I felt like the story kept grinding to a halt for a production number that had nothing to do with said story. For example, why were The Artful Dodger and Nancy singing "I'd Do Anything" at the hideout?
Perhaps it's obvious where I'm going with this, but I do think the songs in 1970's "Scrooge" fit better and don't slow down the proceedings.
I realize that "Oliver Twist" is a much longer book than "A Christmas Carol" and it needs to be pared down, but I felt like "Oliver!" just basically took the adaptation from David Lean's 1948 film version and shoehorned the songs in. And it can't compare to that classic!
On the plus side, I thought the performances were good with Ron Moody and Jack Wild standing out and deserving of their Oscar nominations, although they kind of come off as wacky comedy relief!
Of course, I associate Jack Wild with "H.R. Pufnstuf," a bizarre Saturday morning show from my distant youth!
Interestingly, "Oliver!" gets a rating of 7.4 on the IMDb whereas "Scrooge" gets 7.5. Hmmm...
No comments:
Post a Comment