Oliver & Company (1988)
Disney Animated Classic Number 27
Starring: Joey Lawrence, Billy Joel, Dom DeLuise, Robert Loggia, Natalie Gregory, Cheech Marin & Bette Midler
Directed by: George Scribner
Rating: ★★★½
1988: New York City. A place where people carry ghetto blasters on their shoulders, wear high-top sneakers and parachute pants, and shuck and jive down the streets to synth-pop. Well, at least according to Oliver & Company.
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| Oliver and Company |
Any movie that begins over the skyline of Manhattan with a soundtrack that consists of a synthesizer, saxophone, drum machine and funk guitar is bound to be good. The reason why? Because we know that we are in the 1980s. Anyone raised on a healthy dose of 80s movies will instantly recognise the distinctive music that intoxicated their childhood film viewing. All of the best films were made in the 80s, and all of the best 80s films drip from head to toe in tacky music, racial stereotypes and poorly dressed people ‘sassing’ their way through life.
That was the wonder of the 1980s.
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| Oliver is a very cute cat |
And luckily for us, Oliver & Companyhas all of that and more. It is an archetypal example of a 1980s cheesy movie. The opening number is a rock/pop/funk song about having a dream once upon a time in New York City- oh yeah- and the lead singer directly addresses Oliver (Lawrence), a stray cat, by telling him not to be scared and to keep his hopes alive, while he is being chased by a terrifying dog with one eye.
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| Sykes' henchmen are brutal and scary |
I can’t stress enough how 80s this movie is. For anyone who enjoys the charm and tawdriness of films from this century, like me, you will love and appreciate Oliver & Company for its revelry in everything that society at that time had to offer. If you can’t quite understand what I’m going on about, or you are too young to truly appreciate what I am saying, then Oliver & Company probably isn’t a Disney movie for you.
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| Dodger may be a little rough around the edges, but he has a heart of gold |
The animation is poor. This was at Disney’s ‘cheap’ period, as The Black Cauldron almost bankrupted the company and Disney were still picking up the pieces. They had already followed that flop with a success, and as they were making The Little Mermaid, they shoved Oliver & Company in to compete with The Land Before Time. The fact that thirteen people came up with the ‘story’ shows that this film must have suffered some terrible development problems. Originally it was meant to be the sequel to The Rescuers (which is very apparent with the main little girl Jenny (Gregory) being almost identical to Penny), but that idea got scraped, and instead Oliver & Company became a test run for CGI effects and the musical format that Disney wanted to bring back.
So basically, Oliver & Company was kind of a dumping ground for Disney to experiment with before their Renaissance- which would begin a year later. So it makes sense that the animation isn't great, but funnily enough, the gritty look that the film has actually works in its favour, as it completely suits the entire tone of the movie.
Essentially, Oliver & Company is supposed to be a ‘spin’ on the classic story Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens but in reality shares nothing in common with it at all except for the names of the characters, and the fact that they are all homeless. This is probably a good thing, as I was steeling myself for watching a dog version of Nancy being bludgeoned to death by a dog version of Bill Sykes. Luckily, this doesn’t happen as Nancy isn’t in the movie and Sykes isn’t a dog, but that doesn’t mean Disney avoids some pretty brutal and visceral death scenes. But we’ll get to that part later.
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| The villain: Skyes |
The main thrust of the movie is that Oliver is a stray cat who he meets Dodger (voiced by Uptown Girl singer Billy Joel), an alley cat who lives with and works for a human named Fagin (DeLuise) and some other stray dogs on the condition that the dogs run around Manhattan stealing and pickpocketing to keep them all alive. Although this makes absolutely no sense, as the dogs are terrible at stealing, it means that Oliver can meet a ‘company’ of dogs who show him around the city and sing songs. Pretty quickly though, Oliver is found by Penny Jenny, a rich child who takes Oliver in, making him a 5th Avenue Cat, much to her dog Georgette’s (Midler) disgust, and Dodger and company set out to ‘save him’. When Fagin finds out about Penny Jenny and her wealth, he decides to kidnap and ransom her so that he can pay off the evil loan shark Sykes (Loggia), and everything from this point becomes incredibly dark and disturbing, as Oliver and his company set out to rescue her.
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| Sykes has no problem hurting people: including Fagin |
Overall, Oliver & Company is quite understated. It is a slow paced character driven musical that focuses on Oliver and his friends, rather than lots of razzle dazzle and a cohesive plot. And I mean this as a compliment. The fact that the story is so thin means that the characters get a chance to shine and lots of interesting, although sometimes unrelated, things happen to them. The city itself is also one of the prominent stars of the show, and you can tell that a great deal of care and consideration went into the design of the skyscrapers, buildings, bridges and streets.
The 80s soundtrack is also great: all of the songs are very good if you enjoy cheesy 80s pop. Most of the songs are about living life to the full, and Dodger sings a song about being streetwise- a song so potently memorable that it got stuck in my head for ages- as apparently there is a rhythm to the city that everyone has got to learn. There is also a pop/R&B song with an electric guitar about the streets being made of gold, a nice emotional song sung by Jenny about being in good company, and a scene stealing song by Georgette about being perfect that is as hilarious as it is campy and over the top.
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| Georgette and Tito develop an attraction to one another over the course of the movie |
The supporting characters are fairly bland but aren’t dislikeable. Tito (Marin), also known as Ignacio Alonzo Julio Frederico de Tito, is meant to be a Mexican gang member or something, and his name, voice and breed are almost exactly the same as the similar racist stereotype dog found in Lady and the Tramp. Speaking of that film, some of the dogs from that Disney ‘classic’ make a cameo at the beginning, as does Pongo from One Hundred and One Dalmatians. PennyJenny is so similar to Penny from The Rescuers that they might as well as kept her the same character. That too was set in New York City so it wouldn’t have been a stretch of the imagination. Obviously someone thought that basing the movie very very very very loosely on Oliver Twist instead of making a sequel to that unmemorable outing was a better idea.
After seeing The Rescuers Down Under, they were probably right.
After seeing The Rescuers Down Under, they were probably right.
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Oliver & Company has an incredibly similar tone and style to The Rescuers, but is more interesting. The first half is very boogie-woogie upbeat in comparison to the frantic and frightening second half. As soon as Sykes’ awesome three dimensional CGI car drives onto the docks, you know that something terrible is going to happen, and it does. Sykes uses his attack dogs to maul Fagin, but Dodger intervenes and gets pretty messed up. Then, when Jenny is kidnapped, Oliver and his friends rescue her from Sykes and end up driving down the subway tracks. This car chase is the best part of the film, as it is really exciting, fun and horrifying all at the same time. Fagin assists the dogs, and by doing so redeems himself, but it is Oliver who steals the spotlight by killing the two attack dogs. He does this by pushing them onto the electric train tracks, and yes, we do see them sizzling alive. Sykes himself also suffers a rather horrific death scene, as a subway train smashes into him and hurls his car into the river. Ouch.
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| The chase along the subway is the best part of the movie |
So just like Oliver Twist and The Rescuers, Oliver & Company has a happy ending. Even though the entire idea, that there are a group of dogs stealing for a human, is ridiculous, Oliver & Company is far better than some of the other Disney Disasters I’ve seen. It may not be the best thing since sliced bread, but it’s entertaining enough.
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| In spite of everything he has to go through, Oliver gets a happy ending. |
It is also interesting to note two things about this film. The first is that one of the men who contributed to the writing of the screenplay, James Mangold, went on to become a film director and make one of my favourite horror films of all time, Identity.
The second is that Oliver & Company was such a success that it encouraged Disney to make one movie a year.
So if you love Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and other Disney Renaissance classics, then you have Oliver & Company to thank, just like you should thank Basil for The Little Mermaid.
The second is that Oliver & Company was such a success that it encouraged Disney to make one movie a year.
So if you love Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and other Disney Renaissance classics, then you have Oliver & Company to thank, just like you should thank Basil for The Little Mermaid.
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