Review OLIVER & COMPANY by Disney
I have been watching or rewatching all the Disney full-length animated features in chronological order, which provides the prospective of seeing each work in the context of its film history. In this case, we have reached what is widely regarded either as the last film of the Dry Spell (a long period of uncreative and inferior works following Walt Disney’s passing) or the first of the Disney Renaissance (a welcome return to their old strengths and new inspirations.)
As with all Disney films, no criticism can touch a childhood favorite, regardless of merit, but, contrariwise, the mission of the critic is to review even beloved works by standards as dispassionate as the passionate nature of the subject matter admits.
For myself, this film came too late in my life to be a childhood favorite, for it premiered during my college years. I was unimpressed with it then, largely forgot it, and am unimpressed now, and found it largely forgettable, but not flawed.
OLIVER AND COMPANY (1988) is very loosely based on Charles Dickens’ OLIVER TWIST, but taking place in modern New York, and with cats and dogs instead of orphans.
Disney attempted innovation here, and invited pop stars to sing the parts, Billy Joel, Bette Midler, and Huey Louis. Also, the use of computerized animation is visible to the sharp-eyed, particularly renderings of cars and machines.
The plot is straightforward, but inexplicably uncompelling.
Oliver the kitten remains unselected from a cardboard box on a streetcorner after his littermates have been sold or given away to passers-by. A heavy rainstorm drives him into the streets. The animators do a superb job of conveying the different personalities and quirks of the myriad passers-by from a kitten’s-eye view of the sidewalk crowd, merely by their shoes and gait, without showing any faces.
Dodger the Cool Dog, voiced by Billy Joel, tricks Oliver into helping him swipe a line of hotdogs from a street vendor, then rooks him out of his fair share. Oliver shows dogged persistence, despite being a kitten, and follows Dodger back to his hideout.
The sole memorable song of the film, “Street Savior-Faire” is sung during this chase scene, with Dodger displaying his sang-froid and debonair charisma as he moves to the rhythm of the city, always stepping in just the right spot to ease past any dangers. He even sports a pair of sunglasses at one point. It is an entirely charming song, and even if not equal to Disney’s immortal classics, it is still fun and remains after the rest of the film is forgotten.
The hideout is a barge where Fagin the unwashed lunatic street-bum, voiced by the immortal Dom DeLuise, lives with a gang of petty-crime trained thief-dogs. The ensemble cast are introduced and given distinct and lively quirks in short order: a slow-witted Great Dane, a pompous Bulldog with thespian ambitions, and a sultry Saluki, the sole she-dog present. The final member is a hot-tempered Mexican chihuahua voiced by Cheech Marin, who is the gang’s electronics expert, which means he bites on wires and gets comically electrocuted.
At first the canine gang menaces the kitten, but then Sykes the loan-shark arrives with his Doberman pincers, Roscoe and DeSoto, to menace Fagin. Fagin has three days to settle his debt.
During the confrontation, the kitten claws the nose of a Doberman in mid-threat, which wins over the hearts of the thief dogs, who warmly welcome Oliver as a member. As Fagin bemoans his fate, his kindhearted side is displayed, as he reads bedtime stories to his dogs, and cuddles up with them to sleep. In a Disney film, any fellow who loves his dogs, even a thief, cannot be all bad.
The thief dogs go out the next day to scam and pick-pocket whom they may, without telling the unduly naïve Oliver that they are criminals. A second song, telling Oliver the New York streets are paved with gold is sung here, on much the same theme as the previous song, but, unlike the previous, is unremarkable.
The dogs select a limo holding a rich but adorable moppet and her loveably bungling butler as their scam targets, fake a car accident, and try to rip off the car radio during the commotion. The Chihuahua gets comically electrocuted.
The kitten is not really given anything to do during the scheme, so he keeps lookout. The plot is foiled when the rich but adorable moppet decides to adopt the poor but adorable kitten.
The dogs are convinced the kitten has been kidnapped, and go to rescue her from the rich uptown mansion to which Oliver is now taken. The dogs allow a day and a night to go by, which undermines the apparent tension of the three day time limit imposed by Sykes.
Meanwhile, the moppet convinces the butler to let her keep the kitten, as both parents are away on travel, and too busy to return for the girl’s birthday party.
The vain and spoiled poodle and prize winning show-dog, Georgette, voiced by Bette Midler, sings a forgettable but amusing song in praise of her own perfection, and then is jealous and downcast to see another pet sharing the mansion.
The moppet in montage is shown forming a friendship with the kitten, and sings a forgettable but sentimental song to that effect. Oliver is given a collar and tags with name and address.
The thief-dogs invade the house, again scam the bungling butler, and slip inside. When the vain show-poodle discovers they are here to kidnap the kitten, she gleefully aids and abets the attempt. The Chihuahua makes a comical pass at the show-poodle, who reacts with disgust. (She will later warm to him, making plans to bathe and groom him, which causes him to flee in comedic bachelor panic. The show-poodle is in several scenes hereafter, but plays no real role.)
Back at the hideout, Dodger the Cool Dog is miffed that Oliver wants to return to the moppet who loves him, because the dog-gang is a family.
This scene is mildly amazing to modern eyes, because the theme that a family is and can be any arbitrary collection of team mates, allies, or random strangers having a common purpose has been so often repeated, that to hear it spoke in a context where the sentiment is clearly shown to be wrong and incorrect is to hear an echo of brighter days now lost.
Oliver is given the difficult choice between the dog gang and the adorable moppet, both of whom have a claim on his love and loyalty. The choice is interrupted by the return of Fagin, who, spying the expensive tag on the cat’s collar, and reading the uptown address, decides to hold the pet for ransom, delivering a badly written note to the mansion mail slot with his demands.
The adorable moppet with her piggy bank attempts to follow the scrawled directions of the badly written note, gets lost, gets found by Fagin, whose innate kindheartedness forbids him from following through with this kitten-kidnapping plan.
Fagin is about to return the kitten when all are interrupted by the approach of Sykes in his evil slit-lanterned limousine and two brutal Dobermans. He kidnaps the moppet to hold her for ransom, declaring as he departs that the debt of Fagin to Sykes is settled.
The thief dogs give chase, the moppet is rescued by the streetwise cleverness of the Dodger the Cool Dog, the Dobermans set out in counter-pursuit, the limousine chases the rickety golfcart of Fagin the unwashed lunatic street-bum with all his dogs piled atop into the subway. The two vehicles race down the underground electrified rails, Dodger the Cool Dog is wounded but neatly drops the Doberman to his doom, and Sykes is smashed to bits by an oncoming subway train.
The gang returns to the mansion to celebrate the adorable moppet’s birthday party, the unwashed lunatic street-bum befriends the bungling butler, and, after the party, the thief-dogs return to the vibrant gutter-life of petty crime, singing a reprise of “Street Savoir-faire.” Roll credits.
The characters are charming, one and all, but lack that special magic seen in Disney’s earliest works, and rediscovered in the movies following. Dodger the Cool Dog is iconic, the Elvis Presley of the Canine underworld, but everyone else is basically a collection of mannerisms with one schtick: dumb, or sultry, or pompous, or peppery, or lunatic, or bungling, or adorable.
The animation of the alleyways and docks, streets and skyline merits special mention: Disney took particular pains to collect shots and render the real buildings, using computer aid. The scenes are well rendered, and the personality of the setting leaps off the screen. This is the iconic New York, and not likely to be mistaken for any generic urban setting.
The humans are slightly on the cartoony side, particularly Fagin, but the moppet is rendered adorably, and Sykes exudes a menace almost palpable.
Many of the repeated flaws seen in other films in the Dry Period are absent: the slapstick is not gratuitous nor intrusive, and the villain is appropriately villainous.
Nonetheless, the film was not very satisfying. Dickens and Disney do not really work well together. I recall a similar awkwardness with Disney’s ALICE IN WONDERLAND.
The plot is meandering, but, unlike in Dickens, this version of Oliver has no birth family or settled place the plot conspires to have him find, and no pointed Victorian social commentary is being made.
Disney also aims at a younger audience, and so cannot really show the thief dogs as thieves. In fact, at no point in the film are the dogs shown successfully stealing anything, aside from the original line of hot dogs: and starving orphans stealing food from a mean fat oaf is morally permissible for kiddies to see, I suppose.
Dickens had the art of making unpleasant people, men with flaws, nonetheless sympathetic. This is not something easy to do for films aimed at young audiences. Disney’s fame rest on fairy tales, whose characters and themes are mythic, archetypal, universal. Now, to be sure, the dashing highwayman, the robber with the heart of gold, or the charming pirate are themselves archetypes Disney can do: this may be why the Dodger the Cool Dog is a memorable character.
Nothing is particularly wrong with the plot: it moves from point to point mechanically, as it ought, and brings out the conflicts as needed when needed.
But nothing is particularly well done either. The events lack needed emphasis.
Case in point: when the Dobermans threaten the thief dogs, the kitten claws one in the nose, and is saved from certain death when the Dobermans are called away. By the mechanics of the plot, this should have been a turning point where the feisty nature of the little kitten wins the hearts of the gang, who had been menacing him themselves not long before. But the execution was hasty, and the act looked like a flinch of desperation, not a moment of bravery.
Again, and for the same reason, earlier in the film, we do not see how the kitten tracks Dodger the Cool Dog back to his hideout. Did he do something clever? If so, we do not see it. Nor is it shown that the Cool Dog is impressed with the kitten’s persistence, nor impressed with some other trait that might make him useful to the gang.
Again, when Dodger the Cool Dog fights and kills the evil Doberman, a fight that had been brewing and being delayed throughout the whole film, it is over too quickly.
The evil dog is hanging over the bumper of a car speeding down the electric subway tracks, clenching his teeth on the neckerchief around Dodger’s neck, and pulling them both to destruction. It is a visually impressive scene, sure to scare kids and grown ups alike. But then Dodger shrugs out of the kerchief and evil dog falls. Zap. Dead. Game over. There is no proper set up and follow through.
It is not like a fight scene, as in Wizard of Oz, where the Scarecrow cleverly uses the Tin Woodman’s ax to drop a chandelier on the Winkie guards, nor is the death itself impressive, like seeing a Wicked Witch melt while she bemoans her fate.
On the other hand, many children (including the miniature child of my own long buried memory whom I consult in my mind when watching Disney films) were terrified and disgusted by the long-drawn-out disintegration and death of the Horned King in Disney’s THE BLACK CAULDRON, so perhaps Disney here was overcorrecting.
If I had to say what was lacking the film, I would say it is a theme.
The tale is not about anything, is not an example of anything. At the end of WIZARD OF OZ, we learn there is no place like home. At the end of SLEEPING BEAUTY, we learn true love conquers all. At the end of CINDERELLA we learn the last shall be first, and the first shall be last.
Here? We learn to lock the door behind you whenever you step out of your limo to move the dog you just ran over to the curb, otherwise a noisy Chihuahua will slip in to snitch your car radio. Or something.
The only real conflict in the film is between the side characters of Fagin and Sykes. Oliver himself had largely nothing to do in the film, as it was in the Dickens novel. He faces no real moral quandaries, and even the choice between the love of the moppet he met for one and only one afternoon, and his loyalty to the street gang with whom he spent one and only one night is a choice immediately obviated by events and forgotten. After the moppet is rescued and has a birthday party, the dog gang no longer asks Oliver to remain with them.
Indeed, no one faces any sincere moral choices, except, perhaps for Fagin deciding not to kitten-nap the kitten when he sees how sad the sad moppet is. Even that is a forgone conclusion: Fagin is depicted as a big softy when he is introduced.
In sum, no obvious errors or lapses mar the film, but something is missing from the pacing, plot, and drama.
The quick pacing of, for example, THE GREAT MOUSE DETECTIVE is absent, as it would have to be for any Dickensian story. The characters have quirks, but not personalities nor archetypes. The plot moves along in the correct steps, but without any really striking drama. As often happens in a tale with an ensemble cast, half the characters had nothing to do in the final sequence.
It is worth watching? Yes, the tale has charming characters, good draftsmanship, and avoids any obvious mistakes. Is it worth watching twice? No. Given a choice, I would rather re-watch THE SECRET OF NIHM by Don Bluth.
My verdict: OLIVER & COMPANY is good but not great.
And with that, I heave a sigh of relief. The Dry Spell is broken.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
