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| Mark Lester as Oliver Twist in Oliver! |
Oh sure, you may say, 2001: A Space Odyssey is getting a lot of press now due to its prescience regarding artificial intelligence, general influence of technology on humans, the search for meaning in the cosmos and the technical proficiency and elegant pacing that was to have a huge effect on film for the next half century, but did it have songs like Where is Love? Did it have singing street urchins?
Answer: Nope.
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| Gary Lockwood and Keir Dullea in 2001: A Space Odyssey. |
Those Academy folks sure knew what they were doing when not even nominating 2001. (The competition for Oliver! was Funny Girl, The Lion in Winter, Rachel, Rachel, and Romeo and Juliet.) They knew that Jack Wild's performance as the Artful Dodger and the song Oom-Pah-Pah were what people would be talking and writing about fifty years later. How could a musical based on an 1837 Charles Dickens novel not be far superior to a ground-breaking work of speculative fiction?
We all know the answer to that!
I tried to leave a comment before, but I guess it didn't go through...
ReplyDeleteI wholeheartedly agree. Oliver! is one of my very favorite movies; my most favorite of all is Casablanca. They don't make them like that anymore.
I saw "Casablanca" twice over the past four months and it still holds up. I can't think of a movie that has more dialogue quoted more often than "Casablanca." I bet a lot of people who quote it don't know what they're quoting when they say things like, "We'll always have Paris," and "Here's looking at you, kid."
ReplyDeleteI never get tired of it. Every Memorial Day in Austin the historic Paramount Theater kicks off their Summer Classics series with it. Coming up again soon !
ReplyDeleteI adore Oliver! I saw it when it came out in '68 - I was a kid, then. The music is so great. It's a production I see over and over, whether as middle-school musical, professional stage production, or streaming. One of the classics, for sure - like Casablanca, but for entirely different reasons! :)
DeleteI adored Oliver! I was a little kid when it came out, but I saw it a couple of times. I still love the music, and see productions (of whatever level of quality/ professionalism) whenever I can. :)
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