OLIVER!

OLIVER! A Romulus Production in Panavision and Technicolor; with Ron Moody, Oliver Reed, Shani Wallis, Mark Lester, and Jack Wild; music and lyrics by Lionel Bart; written for the screen by Vernon Harris; production designed by John Box; choreography by Onna White; director of photography Oswald Morris; directed by Sir Carol Reed.

The major problem with Sir Carol Reed’s movie version of the stage hit OLIVER! is one of priorities. Reed and his production designer and his choreographer seem to have been so determined human values of the Dickens story . For example, & high point of the stage production was the heroine Nancy’s singing of “As Long As He Needs Me,” which came after a savagely brutal scene in which she was beaten by her lover, Bill Sykes, the Villain, In the production I saw, as she began to sing, the stage darkened except for a spotlight on her. The song, then sung in a highly personal manner almost directly to the audience, lost ist explanatory' overtones and became what used to be known as a torch song, but wigh a lot more soul. It was an electrifying moment of theatre which stopped the show cold and won the actress a full three minutes of sustained applause.