The most I can say about Carol Reed's movie Oliver! is it passes as wholesome entertainment. There are nice lyrical passages, some comic moments and an easy-to-follow story of a boy trying to make good.

The least I can say for it, however, is far less generous and apt to collapse around oddly patriotic lines of aesthetic preference. Chiefly my indifference stems from watching the film with complete attention only to find myself counting the minutes until its running time was ended. By failing in my estimation to uphold the musical tradition used throughout the 1960s in such previous Oscar winning Best Pictures as West Side Story and The Sound of Music, Reed's movie is as emotionally rich as a pauper's grave is well appointed.

Yet for all its oddness with respect to my expectation for emotional fulfillment it's wonderfully organized around Lionel Bart's book and Vernon Harris's writing. The result is a pleasant tale of 19th century childhood malaise that partially discounts the otherwise drab surroundings of the film that lacks the pleasant core we might liken to catharsis in the most successful of big screen musicals.

Then again, Oliver! is conspicuously British in origin, not just from the Charles Dickens source novel Oliver Twist but also in its cast, crew and production companies, Romulus Productions and Warwick. Something about this peculiarly British sensibility infests the picture with admirably designed sets and likable performances but it's also decidedly un-American and, therefore, unmemorable.

While I'm not setting out to prove that musicals are culturally specific, or specifically American as the case may be, I am convinced there are formal considerations that should be adhered to within the borders of the Classical Hollywood template. These elements include lush production design, rich colors and sound, terrific songs, meaningful emotional breaks, a simple story ark, good performers and an overall optimism wherein goodness is rewarded and evil disabled.

Oliver! contains many, if not arguably all, these elements but it tragically lacks one additional component I'd call panache or energy. Fatigue hangs about the work like the depressing gray clouds of the British Isles and in this overcast pallor the genre's requisite buoyancy is compromised with a milieu that's distressingly blah.

Assuming a monochromatic visual design as opposed to the usual Technicolor extravagance, Reed's film is workmanlike and austere. Opening inside an English boy's home for orphans with the first production number, "Food", this austerity is thematically resonant with childhood incarceration but the mood fails to subsequently lift after introducing young Oliver Twist (Mark Lester) and his overlord, the cruel-hearted Mr. Bumble (Harry Secombe).

When Oliver requests a second helping of gruel, Bumble recognizes him for the troublesome lad he is and sells him to the highest bidder. Pawned off to a funeral parlor, nine-year old Oliver escapes his confinement and sets out for London intending to seek his fortune. Instantly picked up by a street urchin called the Artful Dodger (Jack Wild), he falls into the company of Fagin (Ron Moody), a kind-hearted man who looks after a gang of boys working as his legion of pickpockets.

Complicating matters is Fagin's associate, Bill Sikes (Oliver Reed), an adult ruffian and thief whom Fagin serves as a fence. Then there's Bill's girlfriend, Nancy (Shani Wallis), a barmaid who dotes on Fagin's boys, and a number of shady dealings in the criminal underworld that gradually expose how Oliver is an orphan of unknown family relations.

One day the Dodger takes Oliver out for a street raid but the neophyte is mistakenly apprehended as a thief. Taken to court and judged not guilty, Oliver is removed to the home of his would-be victim, Mr. Brownlow (Joseph O'Connor), an aristocrat who sees the spirit of his long departed niece in this blonde, angelic little boy.

Owing to his general malevolence Bill thinks Oliver will reveal his identity to the authorities along with a number of troubling details about Fagin's operation. In a fit self-preservation he resolves to kidnap the boy and return him to the streets as the Dodger's apprentice. Meanwhile Nancy conspires on her own to return the boy to Mr. Brownlow who discovers through contact with Bumble that the boy is, in fact, his grand nephew.

Lost to a violent rage Bill kills his love Nancy as she tries returning Oliver to his kin. Then forced on the run by a police force giving chase he turns to Fagin for protection even as the king of pickpockets is forced to flee his operation. While trying to escape Bill is shot dead and young Oliver is reunited with his family as Dodger and Fagin set out for parts unknown in pursuit of new marks and criminal dealings.

Is it an adaptation of Dickens? Oh yes, and it's a pretty successful one when considering the literary origins and more melodious result.

Is it great cinema? No, but it appeals to those who treasure the musical form as an expression of heightened emotions carried through dance and song. Since I do not belong to this group of intended fans, even if I've gradually warming up to the genre as I get older, I can extol the virtues of the film in a few quick about performance.

Along with show tunes like "Consider Yourself", "Where is Love?" and "As Long as He Needs Me" there is a thrilling quality to Bill Sikes's menace. As breathed into life by Oliver Reed he exudes a certain physical brilliance that substitutes itself for charm or tenderness. His eyes constantly judge prospects and the motives of others to give off the cruelty of frights in store for someone meeting him in the dead of night.

Similarly strong in her own limited role is Shani Wallis as Bill's girl, Nancy. Her red hair, dipping décolletage and concern for the boys in Fagin's care give her character a three-dimensional quality otherwise lost on the caricatured adults riddling the film. Without her tortured love for Bill, and because of her sense of social responsibility, the story's conclusion just barely works. Even so Oliver!'s crux for success or failure is undoubtedly tied to its two child stars.

As the eponymous Oliver, Mark Lester sings with an androgynous alto and proves to be the original gilded child in a decidedly vicious age. His blonde hair, unselfconscious smile and game attitude make him the story's point and its moral center. Somehow, though, he operates as a cipher for the adult supports, Moody's Fagin especially, and is thus not entirely up to the task of carrying the film on his narrow shoulders.

Jack Wild as the Artful Dodger is another variety of child performer altogether. At once older than his counterpart at 16-years of age to Lester's 10, he is a more mature dancer with a better sense of comic timing. Unfortunately he's a bit player despite his pivotal importance and this brings in a moment of concentration for the film's top billed actor, Ron Moody.

In his defense I can say he's quite an eye-roller, rhyme-maker and symbol of kindness. But I still found his performance annoying inasmuch as he's a jester to entertain his pickpocket boys while also being their caretaker and exploiter, though we're supposed to ignore this last part because he sings appealing songs about crime. With little room for socio-historical complexities like the necessity of adults capitalizing on the child labor or the pedophilic undertones in the script, Fagin is the kind of evil that seems like gentility incarnate by comparison.

Having won the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Picture award for 1968 I'm now amazed at Oliver!'s selection in light of what other movies were released that year. Whatever else can be said about its co-nominees, Funny Girl, The Lion in Winter, Rachel, Rachel and Romeo and Juliet, it should be noted for the sake of having a good conscience when I sleep tonight that four other entirely great films failed to even be considered for top honors.

Leading the pack is Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey that remains, despite all its cold affect and opaque narrative ark, a masterpiece of filmmaking and an inspiration to drug fans and movie lovers alike. Then there's Mia Farrow's depiction of a pregnant mother spawning the devil in Rosemary's Baby and Sergio Leone's epic spaghetti Western, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Of course any list of that year's great films should include Franklin J. Schaffner's Planet of the Apes that is, sequels, remakes and obvious social allegory aside, a terrific piece of science fiction.

How is it, then, that Reed's musical about a 19th century British orphan with blue blood in his family line won movie of the year? I'll never know but I can confess I didn't hate it so maybe this feeling of indifference, especially when well produced, was the key to the movie awards kingdom of 1968. It certainly wasn't audacity, thematic complexity or innovation and in this safety net of family entertainment we distantly remember 1968's Oscar winner despite many more remarkable works we'd actually prefer to watch again and again.