One of the more prestigious ’60s movie musicals was this extremely popular roadshow item, but late-career director Carol Reed wasn’t treated kindly by the critics. It certainly looks attractive on Sony’s new 4K remaster… the stylized art direction comes across well. Ron Moody, Shani Wallis and Oliver Reed star, with Mark Lester and Jack Wild leading the pack of orphinks as the heroic Oliver and The Artful Dodger. The disc comes with a Digital Code, but not a 2nd Blu-ray encoding.

Oliver! 4K
4K Ultra-HD + Digital
Sony / Columbia Pictures
1968 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 153 min. / Street Date May 27, 2025 / Available from Moviezyng / 34.49
Starring: Ron Moody, Shani Wallis, Oliver Reed, Harry Secombe, Mark Lester, Jack Wild, Hugh Griffith, Joseph O’Conor, Peggy Mount, Leonard Rossiter, Hylda Baker, Kenneth Cranham, Megs Jenkins, Sheila White.
Cinematography: Oswald Morris
Production Designer: John Box
Art Directors: Terence Marsh, Ken Muggleston
Costume Design: Phyllis Dalton
Film Editor: Ralph Kemplen
Original Music and Lyrics: Lionel Bart
Screenplay Written by Vernon Harris from the Broadway show book by Lionel Bart adapted from the book by Charles Dickens
Produced by John Woolf
Directed by Carol Reed

We never saw this major success when it was new — the Air Force Base theater showed its trailer before every show for a solid month, after which my curiosity was exhausted. Twilight Time put out an excellent Blu-ray 12 years ago, and we enjoyed it … all the way up until the disc failed. That never happened to a TT disc before or since. In this new Sony 4K edition, we finally saw the show to its very end.

A note … this particular package does not contain a second Blu-ray encoding of the movie.

Read up on the movie biz in the late 1960s and chances are you’ll be told that all musicals after the big 1965 hit The Sound of Music were flops: Star!, Doctor Doolittle. But in 1968 Columbia released not one but two successful big Broadway adaptations that scooped up several Oscars, Funny Girl and Oliver!  Lionel Bart’s musical premiered in the West End of London in 1960, and hit our Great White Way in 1963, when some stellar English talent were already concocting an adaptation for a Road Show film attraction. Looking at the decade in general, nobody would think that the Musical would go into decline — nine ’60s musicals were nominated for Best Picture, and of those four were winners.

Oliver! seemed to satisfy everybody. It is a close adaption of the Broadway musical, which had already simplified and lightened the tone of Dickens’ book. Tiny Oliver Twist (Mark Lester) dares ask for more gruel in the orphans’ workhouse, and for his trouble is sold to the undertaker Mr. Sowerberry (Leonard Rossiter). When a jealous fellow employee starts an unfair fight, Oliver runs away to London. There he’s recruited by the streetwise young pickpocket thief The Artful Dodger (Jack Wild) and admitted into a den of under-aged sneak thieves supported by the venal but amusing Fagin (Ron Moody).

Oliver has barely begun his first pick-pocketing lesson when he’s falsely arrested. But the thieves’ potential victim, the kindly Mr. Brownlow (Joseph O’Conor), takes Oliver into his house. The place is like paradise for the orphan, and he’s grateful to all. Unfortunately, neither Fagin or his thug confederate Bill Sikes (Oliver Reed) will abide that state of affairs, as they are convinced that Oliver will ‘peach’ (inform) on them. Sikes’ abused girlfriend, ex-thief Nancy (Shani Wallis) is forced to help kidnap Oliver, placing him once again under Fagin’s control. Nancy defies Bill to protect the boy, putting herself in dire jeopardy.

Charles Dickens’ original book was a major work of social comment, written at a time (the late 1830s) when life for the poor of London could be a degrading hell. Dickens enlivened his story with colorful, amusing characters, and most everything that occurs has a humorous side. Making the tale into a musical naturally brightens things even further, but Lionel Bart’s playbook doesn’t shy away from the original’s brutality and dark deeds.

It is of course somewhat fanciful to make Mark Lester’s Oliver Twist such an optimistic, unmarked innocent. Fagin’s den of diminutive thieves is preferable to the workhouse only by degree. The boys do eat meat, even if it’s moldy sausage. As The Artful Dodger, Jack Wild has a generous spirit — London always seems to have room for another thief. The character of Fagin had been targeted as an antisemitic stereotype ever since the book’s publication. David Lean’s 1948 film version gave us Alec Guinness with a prosthetic nose to match the art in original book illustrations, and encountered serious censorship problems in the United States (a three-year delay and 12 minutes excised). Ron Moody’s interpretation is the one that has stuck. That a man who criminally exploits children for profit should be sympathetic is a credit to Moody’s appeal. Fagin is a fanatic miser willing to leave any of his boys in the lurch, yet he doesn’t want anyone hurt.

The characters that made the strongest impression in 1968 were the cutthroat Bill Sikes and his lovingly faithful Nancy. Oliver Reed’s simmering menace more than compensates for Ron Moody’s sweetness; he looks ready to murder anyone at most any time. Sikes is so rotten that even his own dog eventually does the right thing and ‘peaches’ on him. Nowadays it is Shani Wallis who comes off as the film’s foremost star. Her Nancy has the most vibrant songs, including the emotional showstopper As Long as He Needs Me. It’s entirely believable that the spirited and optimistic Nancy would commit herself to the monstrously abusive Bill. Lectures about injustice to women are not necessary, as no viewer will misinterpret Nancy’s story. The movie’s solitary odd note comes when it reaches for a happy fade-out. We’re still thinking about the person that has paid most dearly to help young Mr. Twist avoid a sorry fate.

The music of Oliver! has several still-popular tunes, and other amusing songs that fit the movie perfectly. Food, Glorious Food and Consider Yourself are the boy’s chorus numbers, expanded into large dance scenes. The choreography by Onna White was given a special honorary award by the Academy. You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two is one of several signature Fagin songs. Shani Wallis also sings the big numbers It’s a Fine Life and Oom-Pah Pah. The original play gave Bill Sikes a tune, but in the movie the blaggard stews in silence. Johnny Green supervised the music and the chorus as well as orchestrating and conducting. When Mark Lester’s voice proved unusable, Green’s daughter dubbed his songs.

Critics of ’68 praised the film’s stylized look. John Box had solid art directing credits before Lawrence of Arabia, and from that point forward was tapped for some of England’s most prestigious pictures. Most of the interiors and almost all of the exteriors are purposely drab and dank-looking, to the effect that color accents stand out sharply. The street sets look very deep, and just wide enough for Onna White’s dance troupe. The back alley leading to Fagin’s hideout is a warren of rickety stairs and bridges over an open sewer. It takes a lot of cheerful faces to brighten up this very un-musical setting.

It’s hard to believe that more cast members of Oliver! did not progress to bigger film careers. Shani Wallis reportedly preferred live theater. Oliver Reed may have derived the most benefit from this big-scale musical. The darkly murderous Bill Sikes terrified a generation of young kids that wouldn’t have known Reed’s Hammer films and youth rebellion movies. Reed continued to make unusual smaller pictures, but also won desirable roles with directors Ken Russell and Richard Lester.

Oliver! remains Carol Reed’s most popular picture after The Third Man. His only musical, it won him a Best Directing Oscar just as his career was winding down. Critics praised Third Man to the heavens, but have never been as kind to most of Reed’s other work. They aren’t as well known, but we can recommend his excellent pictures  The Man Between,  Outcast of the Islands, and  Odd Man Out.

It goes without saying that Sony and Columbia Pictures would give their 4 K Ultra-HD + Digital of Oliver! the best treatment available. The Panavision images are sharp and vibrant, and without the greenish tinge that soaked into earlier video copies. The presentation comes with Overture, En’tracte and Exit music cues as per the original Road Show release. There isn’t a false move in Oswald Morris’s camerawork. We do smile a bit when some cutaways in a musical number tilt the camera a bit — the widescreen format is less forgiving of Carol Reed’s favored Dutch angles.

The audio comes with a choice of configurations for the home theater viewer, as listed below. The main extra is a full-length audio commentary by Steven C. Smith, noted biographer of film composers. Jack Wild’s screen test is included. From a 2019 Sony disc come four featurettes, including an original promo piece from 2019.

And don’t forget, this 4K + digital copy release does NOT have a standard Blu-ray encoding.

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Oliver!
4 K Ultra-HD + Digital rates:
Movie: Excellent
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent English Dolby Atmos;English DTS-HD MA 5.1;English DTS-HD MA 2-Channel Surround
Supplements:
Audio commentary with Steven C. Smith
Jack Wild Screen Test
Behind-the-Scenes Featurette
Meeting Oliver!
Meeting Fagin!
The Locations of Oliver!
3 Trailers.
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only), French, Spanish, Turkish
Packaging: One 4K Ultra-HD + Digital in Keep case in card sleeve
Reviewed: June 8, 2025
(7339oliv)

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