Oliver!: 1968

So I just should have kept moving ahead.

I'll admit, I'm not quite an hour into the film version of the musical Oliver!, and I've sat through some pretty awful films for this blog but the excessive overacting that I'm watching is just too much. I realize that for a Broadway stage the actors need to be powerful to broadcast their emotions, but this seems extreme even for a live performance. For example, when Bill tells Fagin that he killed Nancy, Fagin bits his finger and turns away. It's just to over the top. The only believable acting is done by the young Oliver (played by Mark Lester, whose filmography shows that he was a child star), but I wonder if that's due more to being young and the role requiring him to look scared most of the time, which isn't difficult to do given the situations he's in.

Immediately what bugged me was how off the lip-syncing seemed to be. I understand that the actors cannot sing while being filmed, but a couple of the songs early on (one performed by Nancy who was singing about how she simply cannot leave Bill even though he's a jerk) seemed so off I was distracted and couldn't follow the song.

Good news, though, the disc wasn't clearly labeled, and apparently instead of watching the first half, I was watching the second half of the movie. That clearly explains why there wasn't a menu when I started the disc. I'm counting this viewing...I'm not watching any of this film, unseen or seen, again.