Consider yourself one of the family - Oliver!

10/5/2013 Oliver! Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adaptation Score, Best Art Direction, Best Sound, Special Academy Award for Choreography 1968

I know I have seen bit and pieces of this musical, and I think a lot of people are familiar with some of the songs like "Consider Yourself" and "Food, Glorious Food", but I don't know how many people have seen the whole thing. Oliver! the movie is based on Oliver! the stage musical by Lionel Bart which is based on Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist is an orphan living in a typically Dickensian workhouse, and the movie opens with the boys in the workhouse singing about gruel, and doing some pretty cool choreography in the process. Oliver gets on the wrong side of the the people who run the workhouse by asking for more gruel, "Please sir, can I have some more?". He falls in with the Artful Dodger (played by Jack Wild who was nominated for an Oscar in this role; he was also in H.R. Pufnstuf) and Fagin (Ron Moody, also nominated for an Oscar), learning a little about the pickpocketing business. Mark Lester played Oliver and he has this wide-eyed innocence and naivete, and he kind of moves through the scenes inhabited by the adults; I mean considering the movie is named for him, you would almost expect more focus on him, but it did not strike me that way, Fagin, Nancy, Sikes (Oliver Reed is a mean Bill Sikes), and Dodger seem to have more lines and sing more songs. The movie won six awards including Best Picture, Best Director and a Special Academy Award for Choreography. There are so many reasons to enjoy this movie: the music, the choreography (normally I'm not a choreography person, but there is some pretty neat stuff), the sets, and some good humor. It would make a great family movie to watch over the upcoming Thanksgiving Day holiday (it's not that far away). It's about two and half hours, but there is an intermission, and it's so easy to get caught up in the movie, you don't notice the time (compared to other movies I could mention). Who knew Dickens could be so fun?