How did the film OLIVER!

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 7/4/06 at 12:54pm

get a "G" rating?

[NathanLaneStalker]

Posted: 7/4/06 at 12:55pm

I just watched it on TCM......I think it should've gotten PG but that's it!

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/4/06 at 1:01pm

For 1968, I'm really surprised it got a "G."

Somebody pulled a favor with the MPAA, I'll bet.

Back then, "GP" (as it was called) meant that quite a few parents weren't going to let their kiddies see it alone. It meant a significant loss in revenues. And only three years after "The Sound of Music" they wanted to make sure their film was "family friendly" too.

But how is beating your leading lady to death with a cane "family friendly?"

Of course, nowadays, you could cut her head off and still get a G.

[HeartandMusic]

Posted: 7/4/06 at 1:03pm

Who knows? It reminds me of when my old middle school did the production, I played the policewoman. They edited the crap out of that show, our production was definitely G-rated. Nancy didn't even die in the end, Bill Sykes never even hit her! He raised his hand and she passed out from fear. And Bill didn't die either, in the end he ran away from an angry mob. It was very dissapointing. We shouldn't even have done that production, it was so weird. If a school administration wants their students to do a show where there is no death or unhappiness or anything, then they should pick a show w/ no death. Ugh, this happened years and years ago but it still annoys the heck out of me.

Okay, I'm done. That's my rant for the day.

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 7/4/06 at 1:07pm

He raised his hand and she passed out from fear.

LOL, Aww.

[i<3jerseyboys]

Posted: 7/4/06 at 1:09pm

i just watched it on TCM,that is one of my favorite movies,r.i.p jack wild.

[TheEnchantedHunter]

Posted: 7/4/06 at 2:42pm

It's a brilliant film musical, with superb direction, staging, cinematography, editing, performances, orchestrations, not to mention a wonderful imagining of Dickens. One of the very, very best movie musicals on a par with the best of the Freed unit.



Winthrop Paroo
River City, Iowa

[Smaxie]

Posted: 7/4/06 at 2:58pm

Also, some very smart changes - like giving "Oom Pah Pah" a dramatic context. In the show, it's pretty much an Act Two skirt lifter, but in the film, Nancy stages it as a diversion to get Oliver away from Bill Sykes. The Onna White choreography is terrific, but the number is also unsettling, with Shani Wallis playing out Nancy's anxiety, while she keeps the song going.

I also think the film smartly trimmed out the stage version's deadlier numbers. I know "I Shall Scream" has some fans here, but I don't miss it. "That's Your Funeral" stops the show cold, when you just want Oliver to meet up with the Artful Dodger and get on with it. And "My Name" seems a little dopey to me...it's more ominous in the film as underscoring, instead of having Bill Sykes sing it.

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/4/06 at 2:59pm

EnchantedHunter --- That was the one positive thing I've ever seen you write.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 7/4/06 at 4:04pm

Children NEED to be intelligently introduced to the fact that this is a cruel world. When that film came out, that was still ppossible. I grew up on Warner Bros. cartoons and The Three Stooges and enough violence on Saturday mornings to fill a stadium. And I haven't been the worse for it (well, except for the fact that I read books, love art and am adicted to musical theater.... hmmmmm....)

Dickens is wonderful reading for children and Oliver is a masterful interpretation of a classic.

[HeartandMusic]

Posted: 7/4/06 at 4:10pm

allofmylife, I completely agree with everything you just said. Oliver was the first cast album I ever listened to, and I got it when I was six! I'm with you on the Saturday morning cartoon violence, too. I spent childhood Saturdays watching Daffy Duck get shot full of holes and there's nothing wrong with me!

*Goes off to the corner murmering to herself and snickering...*

Posted: 7/4/06 at 4:34pm

I was a kid when this show was on Broadway, and Georgia Brown was the star and was the darling of Broadway for a little while. I just loved her voice. I was disappointed when Shani Wallace was cast in the movie. She seemed like a lightweight to me compared to Georgia Brown.

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 7/4/06 at 5:03pm

Shani Wallis got it, when Julie Andrews turned it down! I loved Georgia Brown in the role. She was incredible; and, Shani Wallis just seemed so nothing, by comparison.

[Jon]

Posted: 7/4/06 at 5:21pm

This was the first Broadway show I ever saw - I was 5 years old! Georgia Brown was amazing, and some kid named Davy Jones played Dodger.

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/4/06 at 6:07pm

Jon, whatever happened to him?

I was musical director on this show in a small community theatre production. I have very fond memories of it. Such a solid musical.

I have trouble listening to Georgia Brown on the OBCR. She's just too whiskey-voiced and "heavy" vocally. I love Shani Wallis, who was called "the British Judy Garland" back in her (very short) day! A beautiful screen performance.

But I did NOT see Georgia, and by all accounts I've heard, including BOTH my parents, she was fantastically appealing in the part. My dad was a cameraman on The Patty Duke Show (in NYC), and Paul O'Keefe, who played Patty's younger brother on the show, was the first replacement for Oliver. They went to see him in it several times, as a result. They always talked about how wonderful Georgia was.

Another one of those shows that was largely overlooked during Tony time.

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 7/4/06 at 6:10pm

I can appreciate Shani Wallis' performance, now, but at the time of its release, I thought she was awful. So powerful was Greogia Brown's performance for me.

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/4/06 at 6:16pm

JohnBoy2 ---I can understand that, because Shani was SO DIFFERENT from Georgia. You had gotten used to a very wonderful thing. Then along comes Shani with a vastly different interpretation. I'm sure my first reaction would have been negative as well, particularly based on what I had experienced in a theatre.

But when I hear Shani sing "It's a Fine Life" and "As Long As He Needs Me" it is nothing short of perfection vocally. She IS the British Judy Garland.

Unfortunately, she was no "spring chicken" when she played it, and the parts just didn't come for her after glowing reviews in the movie. It was her one big day in the sun.

I remember seeing her pop up as a guest star on "Charlie's Angels," of all things. She looked so much older, and it was barely 10 years after the film. But it was SHANI, and I was happy to see her again.

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 7/4/06 at 6:20pm

She was a guest on everything back then. She had lots of variety shows on which to make appearances.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 7/4/06 at 7:13pm

PG and G were much less reactionary than they are now...Anyone remember Jane Fonda's breasts in the PG-rated BARBARELLA?

[Scottie310]

Posted: 7/4/06 at 9:13pm

Updated On: 1/26/08 at 09:13 PM

[buffyactsing]

Posted: 7/4/06 at 9:27pm

I was thinking the same thing about enchantedhunter, Best12Bars.

I thought Shani Wallace was WONDERFUL in the film, but having never seen Georgia Brown I have nothing to compare her to.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 7/5/06 at 1:26am

I saw Georgia Brown in one of (or perhaps her last role) in "42ND STREET" at Drury Lane. She was in fine voice singing "Shadow Waltz."

And the mention of Davey Jones reminds me of a neat fact. The Beatles first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show on the same bill with the cast of "OLIVER." So I guess there is a very early Monkees-Beatles connection there.

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 7/5/06 at 8:35am

Scottie, HAIR is rated PG.