Certainly among The Hobbledehoy’s favorite movie musicals, Oliver! was released September 26, 1968.
The film used mostly young unknowns, among them Mark Lester (Oliver), Shani Wallis (Nancy) and Jack Wild as The Artful Dodger, but also featured Hugh Griffith, an Oscar winner for “Ben-Hur” (1959), in the role of the Magistrate. Harry Secombe, who played Mr. Bumble, was well known in Britain but not in the United States, and Oliver Reed, who played Bill Sikes, had just begun to make a name for himself. Producer John Woolf suggested Oliver Reed for the role to the director Reed, without knowing that the two were in fact related (Carol was Oliver’s uncle). Ron Moody, who was also well known in Britain but not the US, recreated his London stage performance, after Peter Sellers, Dick Van Dyke and Peter O’Toole reportedly turned down the role. Elizabeth Taylor turned down the role of Nancy as well. Julie Andrews was also considered. Director Reed also had Shirley Bassey in mind, but his choice was rejected by Hollywood studio bosses who felt that the public was not ready for a Black Nancy.
Many felt that the role should have gone to Georgia Brown, who had played the role in the West End production where she co-starred with Moody. Moody had a poor relationship with Brown, who blamed Moody for her not being cast as Nancy. However, Moody categorically denied this, saying he had no say or influence whatsoever over the casting of the film and he himself was far from first choice to play Fagin despite his success on stage.
Moody toned down his East London Yiddish accent for the film as compared to the original 1960 London stage version, partly for intelligibility to American audiences and partly to avoid accusations of anti-semitism (although Moody was himself 100% Jewish). In his autobiography, Moody admitted he also changed his accent for the film because a Jew in England in 1837 would not have had his accent. What came to be regarded as Jewish accents was actually the result of immigration of Jews to the UK from Germany and Poland later in the 19th century.
“Oliver!”, along with Columbia Pictures’ other 1968 Best Picture nominee “Funny Girl”, secured a combined total of 19 Academy Award nominations, the most nominations for musicals from one studio in a year. “Oliver!” was the last G-rated film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. It was the last movie musical to win the award, until “Chicago” in 2002 and also had the distinction of being the last British film to win Best Picture until “Chariots of Fire” in 1981 .(Wikipedia/IMDb) See less