Singing Through a Time of Change: The Musical, the Best Picture Oscar, and the 1960s.

The Sound of Music: The biggest of five musicals that won Best Picture between 1958 and 1968.

From 1958 to 1968, five musicals won the Academy Award for Best Picture: Gigi, West Side Story, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, and Oliver! This ended up being the last big surge in popularity for the genre, however. By the end of the 1960s, musicals - alongside other previously popular films such as westerns and Biblical epics - were flagging in popularity. But why were musicals so honored during their final decade as a major movie genre?

As I've noted in my reviews, and despite me thoroughly enjoying a few of them, the musical really isn't my genre. Still, when just shy of half of Best Picture winners during a (roughly) decade long period belong to one specific type of movie, and when that type of movie then almost immediately falls out of favor thereafter, I think it bears at least a passing examination.


ESCAPISM IN A TIME OF CHANGE:

"It’s refreshing and not too complicated. A love story, with children and music. That word ‘joyous’ has an awful lot to do with it."
-Julie Andrews on the success of The Sound of Music. 

Musicals had been a popular genre since the introduction of talkies. The first synced dialogue in a full feature film came in The Jazz Singer, which was a musical. Even so, from 1927 - 1957, the only musicals to win Best Picture were The Broadway Melody, The Great Ziegfeld, and An American in Paris. This wasn't because of any lack of quality musicals. Examples of musicals that, in my opinion, were better than any of the ones that actually won the Oscar during this period included: the 1937 and 1954 versions of A Star Is Born, The Wizard of Oz, Otto Preminger's Carmen Jones, and Gene Kelly's Singin' in the Rain. None of these won the award. Despite now being regarded as one of the greats in the genre, Singin' in the Rain wasn't even nominated!

So why, starting in 1958, did musicals suddenly start routinely winning the big award? I think one reason is that it was a turbulent era. Soviet satellite Sputnik 1 launched in October 1957, prompting enormous anxiety in the West and effectively kicking off the Space Race. The Civil Rights movement grew, with increasingly large-scale demonstrations against segregation and violent incidents that included the bombing of the 15th Street Baptist Church in 1963 and the Freedom Summer murders of 1964. Political assassinations occurred throughout the 1960s, including the murders of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. US involvement in Vietnam expanded, culminating in the unrest at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Entertainment provides a refuge from reality, and musicals are a largely escapist genre. Four of the five Best Picture winning musicals were period pieces, far removed from the chaos of moviegoers' contemporary world. Only West Side Story, with its conflict between Irish/Polish and Puerto Rican street gangs, was set in the present or dealt directly with current issues. The other four titles were more geared toward simple entertainment. Even The Sound of Music is mostly quite light until the shift in tone in the final Act.

It was a period that drove people to seek escape... and it helped that these were well made movies that found great popular success, making it that much easier for the Academy to bestow those honors.

Rita Moreno in West Side Story - the only one of the
winning musicals dealing directly with contemporary issues.

A REALIGNMENT OF VIEWER TASTES:

"I could feel musicals were dying, because there wasn't a renewal of stories and styles and they kept repeating the same plot."
-Leslie Caron, quoted in Roadshow! The Fall of Film Musicals in the 1960s.

The success of musicals in the early/mid 1960s seemed to promise a long life for the genre. Instead, it was a last gasp, a big final production number before the genre danced mostly off the stage. By the end of the 1960s, and despite the popularity of 1968's Oliver!, the musical was in sharp decline.

There are several reasons for this. The success of musicals - particularly The Sound of Music - led to the market becoming saturated. The back half of the decade saw more and more musicals being greenlit in an attempt to replicate that windfall. But The Sound of Music is an extremely well-made film with an excellent script and strong performances. Productions such as Hello Dolly!, Star!, and Paint Your Wagon (I'm actually rather fond of that last... but I'd love to know who thought a musical starring Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood was a good idea!?!) lacked the qualities needed to connect with either critics or audiences. And because it was an expensive genre, when these movies failed, it cost studios dearly.

Even beyond the issues of oversaturation and declining quality, I think there was a realignment in viewer tastes. Three classic genres had been cinematic mainstays for most of the life of the motion picture industry: the Biblical epic, the musical, and the western. All three genres seemed to be flourishing at the start of the 1960s. In a time of change, though, these films started to look not just old-fashioned but downright creaky. By 1970, all three were on the wane.

The Biblical epic all but died on the bigscreen, with most productions moving to television. Westerns and musicals hobbled through for a while, in large part by shifting to try to reflect the new age. Much has been written about the "anti-westerns" of the late 1960s and 1970s, and that same time period saw what I would dub the "anti-musical." Bob Fosse's Cabaret and All That Jazz were more cynical than classic musicals, with production numbers that embraced the darkness rather than providing relief from it. Even then, such films were not always successful. Martin Scorsese's New York, New York, for example, was a well-made, well-acted movie... that failed spectacularly both with contemporary critics and audiences.

There would continue to be scattered hits. 1978's Grease was a traditional musical that tapped into nostalgia for a bygone age, leaning into the same corniness that audiences had begun rejecting a decade prior. But I doubt Grease would have struck a chord had there been ten similar films that same year. And just as Dances with Wolves did not lead to a new western boom, neither Les Miserables nor La La Land led to a big-scale revival of the musical. And Cats - from the same director as Les Miserables - proved a stark reminder that when such films flop, they tend to flop hard.

Gigi's very story - a lighthearted romance between an adult man and a teen girl -
proves that viewer sensibilities can and do change.

POST-SCRIPT:

"Movies can be seen as a mirror for society."
-Godwin Francis, Medium

I think the musical "boom" for Best Picture Winners in the late 1950s and '60s was, in its way, a reflection of that time, or at least a reaction to it. In an age of massive social change, viewers and Academy voters alike took refuge in the comfort of a familiar genre. It didn't hurt that the quality was often high: The Sound of Music absolutely deserved its Oscar, and I wouldn't particularly argue with the awards for West Side Story or My Fair Lady (I would argue against those for Gigi and Oliver).

But the same social changes that made musicals an attractive escape during the first half of the decade made the same films seem like artifacts of a bygone age by the decade's end. Just as I don't think it's a coincidence that this time of change was one that resulted in so many wins for an inherently escapist genre, I also don't think it's a coincidence that the musical went out of style at roughly the same time that the western and the Biblical epic did.

The cultural shift resulted in audiences also shifting, turning away from previously unassailable genres. The next decade's major titles - and major awards - would be dominated by very different fare...


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1968: Oliver!

Workhouse orphan Oliver Twist (Mark Lester) does the unimaginable: He asks for more gruel.

Release Date: Sept. 26, 1968. Running Time: 153 minutes. Screenplay: Vernon Harris. Based on the 1960 musical by: Lionel Bart, based on the novel, Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens. Producer: John Woolf. Director: Carol Reed.


THE PLOT:

Oliver Twist (Mark Lester) is a young orphan living in a 19th century workhouse. While working for an undertaker (Leonard Rossiter), he manages to escape. He makes his way to London, hoping to make his fortune. There, he meets "The Artful Dodger" (Jack Wild), a skilled pickpocket his own age who takes him to his benefactor, the wily old Fagin (Ron Moody). Fagin heads a gang of young pickpockets, working in tandem with the brutish Bill Sikes (Oliver Reed).

While out with Oliver, Dodger attempts to pick the pocket of Mr. Brownlow (Jospeh O'Conor), a respectable gentleman. Dodger's attempt goes awry, and Oliver ends up taking the blame. A witness steps forward to clear him, and Brownlow takes him in out of a sense of guilt. But Fagin and Sikes worry that he might yet talk and expose their operation. Sikes becomes fixated on the possibility and becomes determined to bring Oliver back to a life of petty criminal activity - or, failing that, to silence the boy permanently!

Criminals Bill Sikes (Oliver Reed) and Fagin (Ron Moody) worry that Oliver knows too much.

CHARACTERS:

Oliver Twist: He shows flashes of personality in the first half hour. He plays along with undertaker Sowerberry's plan to drum up business by using him as a mourner for children's funerals. Later, when the despicable Noah Claypole (Kenneth Cranham) insults his mother, he erupts and attacks the man. Alas, these two moments and his actual escape are about it for him doing anything. As soon as he reaches London, his story becomes a series of events that happen to him. This combines with an unremarkable child performance by Mark Lester to make Oliver himself into the weakest single part of the movie, Oliver!

Fagin: Ron Moody recreates his acclaimed stage performance as Fagin, and he is almost certainly the best thing in the film. He's been significantly toned down from the novel. Dickens's Fagin was unquestionably a villain, a deliberate catalyst for violence even though he didn't directly commit it; Oliver!'s Fagin is a largely harmless rogue. He's appalled by Bill Sikes's brutality, and "No violence, Bill!" practically becomes a catchphrase. As Sikes becomes more threatening, Fagin considers reforming and living an honest life - though it doesn't take long for him to talk himself out of it, in one of the movie's more entertaining musical numbers.

Bill Sikes: With Fagin made harmless and another villainous character removed entirely, all the malice falls to Bill Sikes. This actually works, thanks in no small part to the glowering presence of Oliver Reed. His Sikes is what you'd get if malice was somehow cast into human form. He doesn't so much fall back on intimidation tactics as lean into them as a default. He clearly frightens Fagin and the children, and he keeps his lover, Nancy, doing his bidding with threats of violence. From threats, it's a very short escalation to actual violence, with the end of the movie seeing him literally fleeing from a torch carrying mob that seems more appropriate for him than it ever did for Dr. Frankenstein's unfortunate monster.

Nancy: Shani Wallis's Nancy is the light to Sikes's darkness. She's absolutely in love with him and repeatedly makes clear that she won't betray him. She has no illusions about what kind of man he is, though. She accepts his threats and abuse when they're directed at her. But when Sikes turns on Oliver, she's less willing to go along. She argues against taking the boy away from his comfortable new life with Brownlow, and as Sikes's ill-will toward him grows, she does the unthinkable and acts against him.

Artful Dodger: I already noted how bland I find Mark Lester in the title role. That stands out all the more by comparison with Jack Wild's Dodger. Despite being even younger than Lester, Wild gives a fine child performance. His Dodger is quick-witted and silver-tongued as he talks Oliver into following him back to Fagin's hideout. When Oliver becomes the target of pursuit, Dodger tries to misdirect the police, steering them away from the boy. He's often paired with Fagin, memorably at the end of the film, and there's a sense that Dodger is probably very much like Fagin was himself as a boy... which has a sobering effect on the comedy, as Dodger is probably headed toward much the same life as his mentor.

Oliver meets the Artful Dodger (Jack Wild). One of these
child performances is significantly better than the other.

A GAPING HOLE WHERE THE MAIN CHARACTER SHOULD BE:

This was my first time watching Oliver!, and I doubt it's a movie I'll revisit. I enjoyed it well enough, and I'll heap plenty of praise on aspects of it below. But I had one big problem, and that was with Oliver himself.

As I indicated in the "Characters" section, Oliver only actually does anything in the first half hour. His escape from Sowberry and the workhouse is his high point as a character. After that, he becomes ridiculously passive. Dodger takes him to Fagin. Dodger steals the wallet that he is blamed for. Mr. Brownlow takes him in to show him a better life. Fagin and Sikes plot to take him back. Nancy tries to rescue him. Oliver barely even reacts to most of this, to the point where it wouldn't make much difference if he was replaced with a sack of potatoes that was passed from one character to the next.

In fairness, Oliver was also quite passive in Charles Dickens' source novel, Oliver Twist. But the musical takes an existing problem and makes it worse. By eliminating some supporting characters who were directly linked to Oliver, and by toning down Fagin's villainy so that he no longer poses a direct threat, the title character is left with no meaningful interaction with anyone. This reduces him to a plot device, which greatly limits my engagement.

Musical number, Consider Yourself, turns into a tour of working-class London.

CHARISMATIC PERFORMANCES AND A FANTASTIC PRODUCTION:

Despite the weakness of Oliver himself, I mostly enjoyed the movie thanks to its many other merits. Ron Moody's charismatically sleazy Fagin just about fills the gaping hole where a main character should be. The movie sparks to life every time he takes centerstage - and in the middle of the film, that happens a lot, almost always with entertaining results. Too bad, then, that he mostly recedes to the background for the final Act, with Sikes and Nancy taking most of the focus as the tone turns darker.

The production itself is fantastic. Director Carol Reed spent weeks on the big production numbers, and the effort pays off. Consider Yourself, when Oliver meets Dodger, is a musical tour of working-class London. Dodger escorts him to Fagin's hideout through merchants, newspaper sellers, and various others. Each person they pass joins the song, with the performance growing to encompass the entire street.

Its mirror image comes after the Intermission, as Oliver looks out onto the upper-class street of Brownlow's estate to see a flower girl, a strawberry vendor, and milk maids selling their wares to the rich. Again, the number, Who Will Buy?, grows to fill the area, one which belongs to a completely different world than Fagin - and yet is also uncomfortably close geographically, as shown at the end by the camera closing on Bill Sikes, watching for his prey.

The script moves some of the stage version's songs around to good effect. In the stage musical, the boisterous Oom-Pah-Pah is Nancy's first song, introducing the tavern where she plies her trade. The film changes her introductory song to It's a Fine Life, which puts more focus on her character and her acceptance of a less-than-ideal existence. Oom-Pah-Pah is moved to her final song, with her deliberately rousing the people in the tavern to create a distraction for Oliver's escape. This adds a level of tension, folding the song into a part of the story.

Still, it's hard to fully get past the best moments being ones in which Oliver himself is on the periphery. The film dies whenever the focus returns to him. Little wonder, then, that the further along the story goes, the less the title character seems to be at the center of the action.

Sikes threatens Nancy (Shani Wallis).

REMAKES AND RETELLINGS:

As with almost any Dickens story, there are many film and television versions of Oliver Twist. The earliest is dated 1909, and variations of the story continue to be presented regularly. Some of the more notable adaptations include:

Oliver Twist (1922). Director Frank Lloyd, who would later helm Mutiny on the Bounty, directs this silent version starring Jackie Coogan as Oliver and Lon Chaney as Fagin. I haven't seen it, but contemporary reception was almost universally positive, with Chaney's caricatured Fagin influencing most later portrayals. Like too many silent films, it was lost for decades, until a print was found in 1973.

Oliver Twist (1948). Probably the most well-known non-musical version of Dickens' novel, this generally faithful adaptation was directed by David Lean. Alec Guinness's Fagin stirred controversy for playing up Jewish stereotypes, but his performance also was an obvious influence on Ron Moody's characterization (though Moody and director Carol Reed de-emphasized the stereotypical elements). As with most of Lean's works, the film is generally well regarded today.

Oliver & Company (1988). The Disney version makes Oliver a kitten who joins a pack of dogs to survive on the streets of 1980s New York. Dom DeLuise's Fagin is even less villainous than the 1968 movie's, with him coming across as well-meaning and likable. It performed well at the box office, and in retrospect its success was a sign that Disney's animation division was about to turn things around after lackluster output over the previous decade.

Oliver arrives in London.

OVERALL:

Oliver! is a fine production boasting strong performances by Ron Moody, Oliver Reed, and Shani Wallis. It also has an excellent child performance in Jack Wild's Artful Dodger, who makes a fun double act with Moody's Fagin.

Unfortunately, Oliver himself is a bland, personality-free void, and I found my interest waning any time he took center stage. The movie itself doesn't seem interested in him as a character, taking any excuse to focus on Fagin or Sikes or Nancy, to the point that the title character barely even speaks across the second half of the movie! In the end, I can't escape the sense that this movie has a big hole where its young hero should be.

I still liked it more than not - but I can't rate it as one of the better Best Picture winners. Given that The Lion in Winter and 2001: A Space Odyssey were released the same year, I think the Academy got this one wrong.


Rating: 6/10.

Related Post: Singing Through a Time of Change - The Musical, The Best Picture Oscar, and the 1960s.

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