Once a villain you're a villain to the end
There are certain things that I really should have thought of sooner.
Such as how I have had a lifelong love for Oliver Twist AND musicals, and yet it never occured to me to watch Oliver! (1968) until today.
I'm usually the first to scoff when a movie adaption "gets it wrong" and doesn't adhere to the book, but even if I think Oliver! is something more like fanfiction than a socio-satirical story, it's just so damn enjoyable I'll let it pass.
I can't quite get over how wonderful the entire cast is (Harry Secombe! ♥ ). Ron Moody's Fagin predictably stole the show - you can see that was the plan, since Fagin's (modified) ending was granted much more screen time than Oliver's, which seemed more like an afterthought.
Okay, maybe Oliver Reed was a tad bit too pretty to be Bill Sykes (though that might have something to do with me watching The Onedin Line and suddenly finding massive sideburns wildly attractive), but hey, eye candy is hardly ever wrong in a movie. Mostly I was fangirling his trousers though. When was the last time you ever saw movies getting that Edwardian tapered trouser-look right? COSTUME GEEK SALIVATING OVER HERE.
And oh man, you know that assignment I've been struggling with? Well, it was about Eastern European Jews migrating to Britain in the late 1800s. It never occurred to me before, but Fagin is such a Schnorrer stereotype! I know that in the book you can't go a page without hearing him referred to as "the Jew", but I never thought beyond that. Even his songs are tinged with a certain Eastern European sound. Cultural baggage, see how we carry them on!
I read somewhere Dickens was slightly horrified when he realized people thought that the life of Fagin and his boys sounded fun and colourful and exciting. Ah, reading the book when I was ten or so I wanted to join a pickpocket gang like that...
Such as how I have had a lifelong love for Oliver Twist AND musicals, and yet it never occured to me to watch Oliver! (1968) until today.
I'm usually the first to scoff when a movie adaption "gets it wrong" and doesn't adhere to the book, but even if I think Oliver! is something more like fanfiction than a socio-satirical story, it's just so damn enjoyable I'll let it pass.
I can't quite get over how wonderful the entire cast is (Harry Secombe! ♥ ). Ron Moody's Fagin predictably stole the show - you can see that was the plan, since Fagin's (modified) ending was granted much more screen time than Oliver's, which seemed more like an afterthought.
Okay, maybe Oliver Reed was a tad bit too pretty to be Bill Sykes (though that might have something to do with me watching The Onedin Line and suddenly finding massive sideburns wildly attractive), but hey, eye candy is hardly ever wrong in a movie. Mostly I was fangirling his trousers though. When was the last time you ever saw movies getting that Edwardian tapered trouser-look right? COSTUME GEEK SALIVATING OVER HERE.
And oh man, you know that assignment I've been struggling with? Well, it was about Eastern European Jews migrating to Britain in the late 1800s. It never occurred to me before, but Fagin is such a Schnorrer stereotype! I know that in the book you can't go a page without hearing him referred to as "the Jew", but I never thought beyond that. Even his songs are tinged with a certain Eastern European sound. Cultural baggage, see how we carry them on!
I read somewhere Dickens was slightly horrified when he realized people thought that the life of Fagin and his boys sounded fun and colourful and exciting. Ah, reading the book when I was ten or so I wanted to join a pickpocket gang like that...