Goofs

When Oliver starts his journey from the workhouse town to London, it's winter. As his travel proceeds, the winter snow melts, and the landscape becomes green. By the time he arrives in London, it's clearly summer, judging from the people's clothes and the abundance of vegetables. While conversing with the Artful Dodger, Oliver explains that he has been walking for seven days.

When Oliver gets out of bed and goes to the window during the lead-in to "Who Will Buy?", his hair is tousled and sticking up. When the camera angle changes to the outside, his hair is neatly combed.

When The Artful Dodger first introduces Oliver to Fagin and the rest of the boys, Fagin is cooking sausages in a cast iron skillet which he then sets down on a wooden table. They boys are eagerly plucking hot sausages out of the pan to eat, but the number of sausages does not accordingly decrease. Instead, the number of sausages varies between the numerous shots of the pan.

In the "I'd do anything" number, Bet's hair changes.

During the number "I'd Do Anything", Nancy's companion is seen with unbound hair, then a half-ponytail, then unbound again.

The "Boy For Sale" scene is historic nonsense: even during the harshest phases of the Poor Laws, a workhouse pauper could not be traded like a slave from one "owner" to another. Apprentices could be had for nothing, and it was state representatives like Bumble who had to pay tradespeople like Sowerberry for the service of taking paupers off the state's hands, rather than the other way around. The book got this right.

The steps at London Bridge are depicted wrong. The real steps were narrow at the top, and widened horizontally at the bottom, allowing a person to hide and eavesdrop on (or watch) those on the upper steps without being seen. The book got this right.

In the number, "Who Will Buy", the question is asked, "Where is the man with all the money, it's cheap at half the price". Anything is cheaper at half the price. The correct statement would be, "It's cheap at twice the price," which is the original English adage.

Just after Oliver asks for more gruel and is taken by Mr. Bumble to the governor of the workhouse, they are standing at the door--Oliver mouths Mr. Bumble's lines, then to cover it up, starts wiggling his tongue.

Right before the song "Pick A Pocket or Two" starts, when Oliver asks Fagin "Is this a laundry, then, sir?", the Artful Dodger visibly mouths the exact same words.

Bill Sykes' shadow does not match his actual steps when he is first scene.

The window cleaners who appear during the song "Who Will Buy?" are using aluminum ladders painted brown.

In the mess-hall at the beginning, the fire under the cauldron is depicted as being fueled by wood, indicated by the scattered logs around the base. However, little, if any, smoke is visible. Also, the amount of flames continually changes between shots.

There is a pub in the main street called "The Victoria", and the post box Dodger hides behind at the end of the film is embossed with "VR" for "Victoria Regina". The film is set in the 1830s and was published 4 months before Queen Victoria's accession.

In "I'm Reviewing The Situation", Fagin imagines himself owning "a suite at Claridge's". However, the film is based on Charles Dickens' "Oliver Twist," which was set in the 1830s, and Claridge's Hotel was not founded until 1854.

In "Who will Buy?", just after the schoolgirls are pushed into the pool, a family leaves a house, and the mother is wearing hat and clothing more appropriate to the 1890s than the 1830s. She has on a large hat with a brim as opposed to a bonnet, and her dress is definitively from a later era.

The film is set in the 1830s, but Mr Brownlow and his friend Grimwig are seen playing chess with pieces of a design that didn't come on the market until the following decade.

On his way to London, Oliver gets onto a cart which is being pulled along a tarmac road. The first tarmac road in Britain was in 1902; the story was set in the 1800s.

Fagin receives stolen trinkets from Bill Sykes just before Bill gets his supper, but there was no way Bill could have been able to keep all the stolen goods inside his coat.