Trivia of the 1968 Film
- In conjunction with the release of this film (c.
1968-1969), Random House published a hardcover novelization of the
film's screenplay for younger audiences, illustrated with stills from
the film. Among the stills featured were scenes showing the arrival at
the workhouse and the death of Oliver's mother, who, at least in U.S.
prints, never appears in the
 film.
- Early rumors regarding casting included Richard Burton
and Elizabeth Taylor as Bill and Nancy, and either Laurence Harvey or
Peter Sellers as Fagin; though eventually Ron Moody was asked to
reprise his stage role. Jack Wild had played one of Fagin's boys in the
London production, but was now old enough to play the Artful Dodger.
Shani Wallis finally won the role of Nancy nearly a year after first
auditioning when she demonstrated an acceptable Cockney accent - the
one she grew up with.
- The London sets covered six sound stages and a huge
studio backlot - with rich and poor sections. The sets were adaptable
overnight in spite of their sturdy look, due to the fact that single
dance numbers sometimes required changing sets up to a dozen times.
 "Boy For Sale" was shot in July despite the required
snow setting; exterior shots depended on adequate cloud cover due to
the erratic weather in London. The snowballs were made of polystyrene,
salt, crazy foam and mashed potatoes.- The cast included 84 boys between 8 and 15 years of
age, and one member of Parliament suggested they were being exploited
just as the depicted orphans had been. The filmmakers replied that they
needed protection more than the boys did, due to the rowdy nature of
the production during the summer.
- As of 2005, this is the last G-rated film to win the Best Picture Academy Award.
- Amazingly, the composer of this highly respected
score, Lionel Bart, could not read music himself. From his earliest
days in theater, he would sing his melodies to a trained pianist, who
would then set the tunes down on sheet music and orchestrate them.
- While filming the scene where Oliver gets a peek at
Fagin's treasure, director Carol Reed was not satisfied with the
reaction on Mark Lester's face. Later, while re-shooting the scene, he
hid a small white rabbit in his pocket and stood behind the camera. As
Ron Moody opened the box of treasures, Reed pulled the rabbit out of
his pocket. Lester's reaction to the sight of the rabbit was then used
in the final film.
- Mark Lester did not do his own singing in Oliver! It
was dubbed by Kathe Green, daughter of Johnny Green, the music
arranger/supervisor on the film. Johnny revealed this for the first
time publicly in 1988 during an interview on the 20th anniversary of
the film. He says that Mark Lester was "tone deaf and arrhythmic". He
originally had two boys set to dub his singing but during post
production they realized their voices didn't match Mark's look, so they
used Johnny's
 daughter instead.
- The Magistrate that Hugh Griffith plays in the film
did not appear in the original stage production of "Oliver!" He does
appear in Dickens's original novel, "Oliver Twist", on which the
musical is based. In the novel the Magistrate is named Mr. Fang, and
although Dickens wrote him satirically, he did not intend him to be
comical.
- Bruce Forsyth has revealed that Lionel Bart considered him for the part of Fagin.
- Oliver! opened at the Imperial Theater on January 6, 1963 and ran for 774 performances.
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