#Shani Wallis

[tybaltsjuliet]

“You’re a nice one,” added Sikes, as he surveyed her with a contemptuous air, “to take up the humane and genteel side! A pretty subject for the child, as you call him, to make a friend of!”

[oliversexireed77]

Carol Reed casting his Nephew Oliver Reed as Bill Sikes in his Oliver! 1968 musical ( which was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won six, including Best Picture, Best Director for Reed, and an Honorary Award for choreographer Onna White) was the best casting choice he made bc Oliver deserved the role

[gatutor]

Shani Wallis-Mark Lester "Oliver" (Oliver!) 1968, de Carol Reed.

[pretty-little-fools]

[annoyinglyperfectartisan]

Oliver! 1968

[loveboatinsanity]

[rhube]

'As Long as He Needs Me' is such a fucking heartbreaking song. And specifically, Shani Wallis's performance from the film Oliver! is second to none:

The way she transforms her pain into something beautiful and meaningful, because she has to, because she needs not just love, but her own sense of pride. And it's both so simple and so jagged and broken, and all the time the audience is inwardly screaming at her to leave him, that he isn't worth it, that she needs to run!

But she won't. And she never will, no matter how many times you watch it, knowing where the road she's chosen ends.

This song, more than any other part of the film makes the movie infinitely rewatchable. Because you can't help but root for her, and fear for her, and want for it to somehow end differently for her. Even when you know, because you've seen it a dozen times, that it won't.

And that is precisely the horror of domestic violence.

That's the kind of thing tragedy can show us that makes it important. And why it is so, so wrongheaded to insist that you must never depict abuse or people making bad decisions or wanting to stay with their abuser. Because real people do those things. And we need to see them to be confronted with what's going on.

Because some of the people watching Nancy make her terrible, fateful, hopeless decision to stay with the man who hurts her - people screaming at her to leave him - are in the same situation themselves. And maybe they need to scream at someone else in order to hear it for themselves.

And sometimes you have got out of an abusive situation and survived, and you need to grieve for someone who didn't in order to believe that you're really free. And sometimes you need to grieve for all the times you didn't get out, and all the things that happened to you before you finally found the courage to leave.

And sometimes you need the affirmation that you still had your pride, even when you made your mistakes. Because we all deserve our pride. It's not a sin.

Like, this is a top tier, rich, layered-but-still-viscerally-powerful work of art.

This is the star you aim at and don't know you'll ever hit when you create. But you keep trying because by God, when you find something like this, it blows everything away.

[deliciouskeys]

This is one of my top comfort watches. Anybody I know irl who sees this movie and say they don’t like it, I get highly suspicious of.

I think it’s time for a biannual rewatch, maybe on thanksgiving.

[ulrichgebert]

Soviel Leid und Unheil könnte vermieden werden, wenn nicht alle immer mehr wollten!

[thonetsightings]

Columbo - Strange Bedfellows (1995)

[dweemeister]

Good afternoon, is it possible to know the rose seller name in the OLIVER 1968 movie? Have not find it anywhere. Regards.

Hi anon! Thanks for the question.

And holy cow what a question. I tried looking several minutes ago myself, and I've ended up with nothing. The original soundtrack itself just lists "Mark Lester" (who we know didn't do his own singing as Oliver) as well as "ensemble" for "Who Will Buy?". Not much help there.

I'm really sorry anon, but I'm afraid I can't be of much help here. My suggestion would be to ask on other social media sites and perhaps help for a random person to help. I'd also recommend perhaps posting in the Silver Screen Oasis forum (this is a new forum that was created after Turner Classic Movies shut down its message boards) and asking. I don't think you're gonna find much luck, but you just never know about these things.

I'm also afraid that all the relevant people who would know the answer are mostly dead. I guess you could also try figuring out how to contact Mark Lester or Shani Wallis (I don't think that they would know, but they might know/knew someone who did know)? And yes, Shani Wallis is still kicking at 89 years old!

I know this wasn't terribly satisfying, but hopefully this helps?

And for those wondering what the hullabaloo anon's question is about, see "Who Will Buy?" from one of my personal favorite films, Oliver! (1968). The rose seller is the first singer in this wonderful number.

[twittercomfrnklin2001-blog]

Terror in the Wax Museum

That Georg Fenady’s TERROR IN THE WAX MUSEUM (1973, Tubi, Prime, YouTube) looks like a TV movie, and a not very good one at that, shouldn’t be surprising. It’s one of only two theatrical features Fenady directed in a career mostly dedicated to television and was made for a low, even then, budget of $500,000. John Carradine, the proprietor of a chamber of horrors, is considering selling his collection when somebody murders him. With no will in sight, the estate is claimed by niece Nicole Shelby’s guardian (Elsa Lanchester), but someone or something is trying to drive them out. That sounds like the plot of a ‘40s B movie, and with its array of one-time stars (Ray Milland, Broderick Crawford, Maurice Evans, Louis Hayward, Patric Knowles) it looks like one, only not as well made. There are two decent shots in the whole film, and the revelation of the killer is so botched, you can only figure out whodunnit by process of elimination. Hayward comes closest to delivering a performance as a rather likable saloon owner, and Lanchester is very funny. What she can do with a word like “gargle” is a lesson in how to make bad dialog sound almost clever. Her line readings were the only thing that got me through this sorry mess. Milland has an embarrassingly bad drunk scene, especially considering that he won his Oscar for playing a drunk, but at least he has fun in a scene in which he conducts a tour through the museum. He can’t hold a candle for rottenness to Shelby, whose British accent keeps dropping whenever she encounters the word “sure.” There’s a sympathetic deaf-mute hunchback (Steven Marlo) treated with a surprising level of decency (despite his being stuck in a bad Halloween mask). Whenever people turn away while talking to him, they correct themselves and repeat the line to his face so he can read their lips. But then there’s a beautiful Chinese woman (Lucy Lu, who’s still acting in her 90s) repeatedly referred to as a “dragon lady.” Also in the cast is Shani Wallis, whose career obviously didn’t get much of a boost out of starring in OLIVER! (1968), as the finest music hall singer to walk the streets.

[pierreism]

'Alfie (Live on The Ed Sullivan Show)’ by Shani Wallis

Broadcast May 12, 1968. via

[gatutor]

Shani Wallis (Tottenham, London, England, 14/04/1933).

[pretty-little-fools]

[annoyinglyperfectartisan]

Oliver! 1968