I regard the opening sequence as one of the best ever especially enhanced by the expert cinematography in black and white. The film is a dark tale about the terrible life many endured in England in the era. Dickens wanted to demonstrate this and he did so excellently in this story. I have seen Oliver and the Polanski films, both enjoyable but squeaky clean. One does not get the same sense of evil and grime with colour and the filming used the dark gloom to great effect. Bill Sykes is evil and Robert Newton gives one of his best performances. Guiness as Fagin, long way from Obi Wan and controversial, however very true to the Dickens character. We should not look at it as anti Semitic but as a bad person who happened to be a Jew. He is based on a real character in fact.Nonetheless Guiness is brilliant and really steals the show. The rest of the characters are the usual under rated British character actors and each is excellent. Some went on to bigger things e.g. Newley, Dors and of course the wonderfully funny Hattie Jaques, who ended up with Sykes in the end, well Eric Sykes not Bill.
Review of Oliver Twist
