Charly (1968)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

Ralph Nelson

Writers:

Daniel Keyes (short story "Flowers for Algernon")
Stirling Silliphant (screenplay)

Release Date:

23 September 1968 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

A less than ordinary man is turned into a genius. He awakens to an exquisite love experience, but at an impossible price for CHARLY

Plot:

A retarded man undergoes an experiment that gives him the intelligence of a genius.

Plot Keywords:

Experiment | Genius | Intelligence | Mouse | Scientist

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 4 wins & 4 nominations

Cast

Cliff Robertson	...	Charly Gordon
Claire Bloom	...	Alice Kinian
Lilia Skala	...	Dr. Anna Straus
Leon Janney	...	Dr. Richard Nemur
Ruth White	...	Mrs. Apple
Dick Van Patten	...	Bert (as Richard Van Patten)
Edward McNally	...	Gimpy (as Skipper McNally)
Barney Martin	...	Hank
William Dwyer	...	Joey
Dan Morgan	...	Paddy

Also Known As:

The Two Worlds of Charly Gordon (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

103 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono | Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Iceland:L | Australia:PG | UK:PG | Finland:K-8 | Sweden:15 | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

Boston City Hospital - 818 Harrison Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Company:

ABC Pictures

Trivia:

Cliff Robertson saw more than one TV production he'd starred in turned into hit movies with other actors (such as Days of Wine and Roses (1962)), so when he starred in the 1961 "The United States Steel Hour" (1953) production of "The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon," based on the novel "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes, he bought the rights and later was responsible for turning that story into this film.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: Whenever Dr. Nemur is smoking, you can tell the cigarette's not lit, because you can't see any smoke.

Quotes:

Charly Gordon: Marry me, pretty girl, marry me.
Alice Kinnian: We will marry at... quarter past Wednesday on the 74th of November, and our anniversary will happily be... on those days where we both remember.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Film Geek (2005)

"No One Would Ever Think Of Making Fun Of A Blind Person Or A Cripple, Why Would They Do It To A Moron?"

After having done The Days Of Wine And Roses On the small screen and seeing Jack Lemmon get the part for the big screen, Cliff Robertson pulled a Katharine Hepburn. Like Kate the great who bought the screen rights to The Philadelphia Story and dictated the making of it to MGM, Robertson did the same for Charly which he had done on the US Steel Hour almost a decade earlier on television. He did better than Lemmon who only was nominated for Best Actor for Days Of Wine And Roses.

Charly is the story of an amiable mildly retarded man who works and supports himself in a job at a bakery, but also has agreed to become an experimental subject to scientists, Claire Bloom, Leon Janney, and Lilia Skala. Janney has a theory in which he feels that the proper enzyme given and an operation and Robertson could start to function like a normal person.

The operation has some foreseen and unforeseen consequences. One of them is that Robertson is one fully functioning male, but still lacks a whole lot of social skills. He forms an attachment to Bloom which is something she saw coming, but not necessarily her.

More important he becomes far more aware of the world around him and how badly treated he was by a lot of people. One role I very much liked was that of his landlady Ruth White who was a woman with a big heart who does value Robertson as a person and gives him the respect any of us is due.

Still the film belongs to Cliff Robertson who won an Oscar for Best Actor in 1968. Robertson had some stiff competition that year, but probably was helped by the fact that three of his competitors were British, Alan Bates for The Fixer, Ron Moody for Oliver, and Peter O'Toole for The Lion In Winter who if memory serves was the betting favorite. The other nominee was Alan Arkin for The Heart Is The Lonely Hunter. How he manages to go from a mildly retarded man to a person of no mean erudition is a wonderful process unfolding on the screen. Personally I think it ought to be required viewing in every acting class on the globe, the subtleties are something to behold.

I don't claim to be any kind of scientific expert on this or any other scientific matter, but I would love to hear from those who know more as to whether the whole theory is feasible or not. In any event though Charly is a fine picture with both a message and a heart.