''Charly'' (marketed and stylized as ''CHAЯLY'') is a 1968 American drama film directed and produced by
Ralph Nelson
Ralph Nelson (August 12, 1916 – December 21, 1987) was an American film and television director, producer, writer, and actor. He was best known for directing '' Lilies of the Field'' (1963), '' Father Goose'' (1964), and ''Charly'' (1968) ...
and written by
Stirling Silliphant
Stirling Dale Silliphant (January 16, 1918 – April 26, 1996) was an American screenwriter and Film producer, producer. He is best remembered for his screenplay for ''In the Heat of the Night (film), In the Heat of the Night'', for which he w ...
. It is based on ''
Flowers for Algernon
''Flowers for Algernon'' is a short story by American author Daniel Keyes, later expanded by him into a novel and subsequently adapted for film and other media. The short story, written in 1958 and first published in the April 1959 issue of ''T ...
'', a science-fiction short story (1958) and subsequent novel (1966) by
Daniel Keyes
Daniel Keyes (August 9, 1927 – June 15, 2014) was an American writer who wrote the novel ''Flowers for Algernon''. Keyes was given the Author Emeritus honor by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2000.
Biography
Early life ...
.
The film stars
Cliff Robertson
Clifford Parker Robertson III (September 9, 1923 – September 10, 2011) was an American actor whose career in film and television spanned over six decades. Robertson portrayed a young John F. Kennedy in the 1963 film '' PT 109'', and won the 196 ...
as Charly Gordon, an intellectually disabled adult who is selected by two doctors to undergo a surgical procedure that triples his IQ as it had done for a laboratory mouse who underwent the same procedure. The film also stars
Claire Bloom
Patricia Claire Bloom (born 15 February 1931) is an English actress. She is known for leading roles in plays such as ''A Streetcar Named Desire,'' ''A Doll's House'', and '' Long Day's Journey into Night'', and has starred in nearly sixty film ...
,
Lilia Skala
Lilia Skala (née Sofer; 28 November 1896 – 18 December 1994) was an Austrian-American architect and actress known for her role in the film '' Lilies of the Field'' (1963), for which she received critical acclaim and an Academy Award nomination ...
,
Leon Janney
Leon Janney (April 1, 1917 – October 28, 1980) was an American actor and radio personality from 1920 to 1980.
Career
Leon Elbert Janney was born in Ogden, Utah, to Nathan Haines Janney and Bernice Rebecca Kohn. The names of his parents are co ...
,
Dick Van Patten
Richard Vincent Van Patten (December 9, 1928 – June 23, 2015) was an American actor, comedian, businessman, and animal welfare advocate, whose career spanned seven decades of television. He was best known for his role as patriarch Tom Brad ...
and
Barney Martin. Robertson had played the same role in a 1961 television adaptation titled "
The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon," an episode of the anthology series ''
The United States Steel Hour
''The United States Steel Hour'' is an anthology series which brought hour long dramas to television from 1953 to 1963. The television series and the radio program that preceded it were both sponsored by the U.S. Steel, United States Steel Corpor ...
''.
The film received positive reviews and was a success at the box office and later in home media sales. Robertson won
Best Actor at the
Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
.
Plot
Charly Gordon is an
intellectually disabled
Intellectual disability (ID), also known as general learning disability in the United Kingdom and formerly mental retardation,Rosa's Law, Pub. L. 111-256124 Stat. 2643(2010). is a generalized neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by signific ...
man who lives in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
. He has a desire to learn and has attended night school for two years, taking a class taught by Alice Kinnian. He learns to read and write, though his spelling and penmanship are poor and he is unable to spell his own name. He works as a janitor at a bakery, where his coworkers amuse themselves by taking advantage of his disability, and enjoys playing with children at a playground.
Alice takes Charly to researchers Dr. Richard Nemur and Dr. Anna Straus, who have been investigating methods for increasing intelligence. Having successfully tested a surgical procedure on a lab mouse named Algernon, they are looking for a human test subject. They put Charly through a battery of aptitude tests and have him try to solve a series of paper mazes while Algernon runs through models of them. Charly consistently loses to Algernon, but is selected for the surgery.
After surgery, Charly loses to Algernon again and is frustrated at not immediately becoming smarter. After some time passes, he finally beats Algernon and his intelligence begins to increase. His coworkers tell him to operate a complex machine, hoping that he will break it so they can have the day off, but he successfully operates it. Embarrassed and frightened by his new intelligence, they persuade the bakery owners to fire Charly. Alice continues teaching him, but his intelligence continues to increase and eventually surpasses hers. Lacking emotional maturity, Charly becomes infatuated with Alice and confesses his love for her, but she sharply rejects his advances. He flees in an act of rebellion but eventually returns to Boston, and the two start to consider marriage.
Nemur and Straus present their research at a convention. After playing the film of Charly's original aptitude tests, they bring him out for a question-and-answer session. His intelligence now equals or exceeds everyone in the audience, but he has also developed a cynical view of humanity that the attendees mistake for humor. He reveals that Algernon has lost his enhanced intelligence and died, facts that the research team kept from him, and expects to undergo a similar decline.
Charly overhears Alice, Nemur, and Straus discussing his situation and offers to assist in finding a way to preserve his intelligence, but their combined efforts prove fruitless. He falls into a depression and asks Alice never to visit him again. Some time later, Alice sees Charly playing with children on the playground, having fully regressed to his original level of intellectual disability.
Cast
*
Cliff Robertson
Clifford Parker Robertson III (September 9, 1923 – September 10, 2011) was an American actor whose career in film and television spanned over six decades. Robertson portrayed a young John F. Kennedy in the 1963 film '' PT 109'', and won the 196 ...
– Charly Gordon
*
Claire Bloom
Patricia Claire Bloom (born 15 February 1931) is an English actress. She is known for leading roles in plays such as ''A Streetcar Named Desire,'' ''A Doll's House'', and '' Long Day's Journey into Night'', and has starred in nearly sixty film ...
– Alice Kinnian
*
Lilia Skala
Lilia Skala (née Sofer; 28 November 1896 – 18 December 1994) was an Austrian-American architect and actress known for her role in the film '' Lilies of the Field'' (1963), for which she received critical acclaim and an Academy Award nomination ...
– Dr. Anna Straus
*
Leon Janney
Leon Janney (April 1, 1917 – October 28, 1980) was an American actor and radio personality from 1920 to 1980.
Career
Leon Elbert Janney was born in Ogden, Utah, to Nathan Haines Janney and Bernice Rebecca Kohn. The names of his parents are co ...
– Dr. Richard Nemur
*
Ruth White – Mrs. Apple
*
Dick Van Patten
Richard Vincent Van Patten (December 9, 1928 – June 23, 2015) was an American actor, comedian, businessman, and animal welfare advocate, whose career spanned seven decades of television. He was best known for his role as patriarch Tom Brad ...
– Bert (as Richard Van Patten)
* Edward McNally – Gimpy (as Skipper McNally)
*
Barney Martin – Hank
* William Dwyer – Joey
* Dan Morgan – Paddy
Music by
*
Ravi Shankar
Ravi Shankar (; born Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury, sometimes spelled as Rabindra Shankar Chowdhury; 7 April 1920 – 11 December 2012) was an Indian sitarist and composer. A sitar virtuoso, he became the world's best-known export of North Ind ...
Production history
Development
![Cliff Robertson Mona Freeman Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon 1961](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Cliff_Robertson_Mona_Freeman_Two_Worlds_of_Charlie_Gordon_1961.JPG)
The short story ''
Flowers for Algernon
''Flowers for Algernon'' is a short story by American author Daniel Keyes, later expanded by him into a novel and subsequently adapted for film and other media. The short story, written in 1958 and first published in the April 1959 issue of ''T ...
'' had been the basis of "
The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon", a 1961 television adaptation in which Robertson had also starred for ''
The United States Steel Hour
''The United States Steel Hour'' is an anthology series which brought hour long dramas to television from 1953 to 1963. The television series and the radio program that preceded it were both sponsored by the U.S. Steel, United States Steel Corpor ...
''. Robertson had starred in a number of television shows that were turned into films with other actors playing his roles, such as ''
Days of Wine and Roses''. He bought the rights to the story, hoping to star in the film version as well.
Robertson originally hired
William Goldman
William Goldman (August 12, 1931 – November 16, 2018) was an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. He first came to prominence in the 1950s as a novelist before turning to screenwriting. He won Academy Awards for his screenplays '' ...
to write the screenplay on the strength of Goldman's novel ''
No Way to Treat a Lady'', paying him $30,000 out of his own pocket.
[Dennis Brown, ''Shoptalk'', Newmarket Press, 1992 p 63] However, Robertson was unhappy with Goldman's work and then hired
Stirling Silliphant
Stirling Dale Silliphant (January 16, 1918 – April 26, 1996) was an American screenwriter and Film producer, producer. He is best remembered for his screenplay for ''In the Heat of the Night (film), In the Heat of the Night'', for which he w ...
to write a draft.
Robertson received only $25,000 for his role in the film.
Release
The film premiered at the
Berlin Film Festival
The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festi ...
on June 28, 1968.
[ It then opened at the Baronet Theatre in New York City on September 23, 1968.][
]
Box office
The film was a hit, earning $7.25 million in theatrical rentals during its release in North America, and it earned an additional $1.25 million in theatrical rentals overseas, making it the 16th-highest-grossing film of 1968. After all costs were deducted (including $1,325,000 paid to profit share), the film reported a profit of $1,390,000, making it one of the few successful films made by Selmur/ABC Pictures.
Critical reception
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in ...
called the film a "self-conscious contemporary drama, the first ever to exploit mental retardation for...the bittersweet romance of it"; he called Robertson's performance "earnest" but points out that "we he audienceare forced into the vaguely unpleasant position of being voyeurs, congratulating ourselves for not being Charly as often as we feel a distant pity for him." Canby calls Nelson's direction "neo-Expo 67
The 1967 International and Universal Exposition, commonly known as Expo 67, was a general exhibition from April 27 to October 29, 1967. It was a category One World's Fair held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is considered to be one of the most su ...
", referring to the use of split screen
Split screen may refer to:
* Split screen (computing), dividing graphics into adjacent parts
* Split screen (video production), the visible division of the screen
* ''Split Screen'' (TV series), 1997–2001
* Split-Screen Level, a bug in the vid ...
to "show simultaneously the reactions of two people facing each other and conversing" and the use of "little postage stamp-sized inserts of images within the larger screen frame." ''Time'' magazine called ''Charly'' an "odd little movie about mental retardation and the dangers of all-conquering science, done with a dash of whimsy." While "the historic sights in and around Charly's Boston setting have never been more lovingly filmed", "The impact of obertson'sperformance...is lessened by Producer-Director Ralph Nelson's determination to prove that he learned how to be new and now at Expo '67: almost every other sequence is done in split screens, multiple images, still shots or slow motion." Screenwriter (and Hollywood blacklist
The Hollywood blacklist was an entertainment industry blacklist, broader than just Hollywood, put in effect in the mid-20th century in the United States during the early years of the Cold War. The blacklist involved the practice of denying emplo ...
target) Maurice Rapf
Maurice Harry Rapf (May 19, 1914 – April 15, 2003) was an American screenwriter and professor of film studies. His work includes the screenplays for early Disney live-action features ''Song of the South'' (1946) and '' So Dear to My Heart'' (19 ...
called Robertson's performance "extraordinary" and called "astonishing" his on-screen "transformation from one end of the intellectual spectrum to the other"; Rapf took issue with what he called the "pyrotechnics of the camera" and the "flashy opticals", calling the effects "jarringly out of place" and better suited for a "no-story mod
Mod, MOD or mods may refer to:
Places
* Modesto City–County Airport, Stanislaus County, California, US
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* Mods (band), a Norwegian rock band
* M.O.D. (Method of Destruction), a band from New York City, US ...
film like ''The Knack
The Knack was an American rock band based in Los Angeles that rose to fame with its first single, "My Sharona", an international number-one hit in 1979.
History Founding (1977–1978)
Singer Doug Fieger was a native of Oak Park, Michigan, a no ...
''."
Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, writing "The relationship between Charly (Cliff Robertson) and the girl (Claire Bloom) is handled delicately and well. She cares for him, but inadequately understands the problems he's facing. These become more serious when he passes normal IQ and moves into the genius category; his emotional development falls behind. It is this story, involving a personal crisis, which makes ''Charly'' a warm and rewarding film." By contrast, Ebert pointed out "the whole scientific hocus-pocus, which causes his crisis, is irrelevant and weakens the movie by distracting us."
In 2009, ''Entertainment Weekly'' listed ''Charly'' among its "25 Best Movie Tearjerkers Ever."
Awards and nominations
Cliff Robertson
Clifford Parker Robertson III (September 9, 1923 – September 10, 2011) was an American actor whose career in film and television spanned over six decades. Robertson portrayed a young John F. Kennedy in the 1963 film '' PT 109'', and won the 196 ...
won the Academy Award for Best Actor
The Academy Award for Best Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year. The ...
, but under some controversy; less than two weeks after the ceremony, ''Time'' magazine mentioned the academy's generalized concerns over "excessive and vulgar solicitation of votes" and said that "many members agreed that Robertson's award was based more on promotion than on performance." As time went, many saw Robertson's performance to be weaker compared to other nominees, such as Peter O'Toole
Peter Seamus O'Toole (; 2 August 1932 – 14 December 2013) was a British stage and film actor. He attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and began working in the theatre, gaining recognition as a Shakespearean actor at the Bristol Old Vic ...
in ''The Lion in Winter
''The Lion in Winter'' is a 1966 play by James Goldman, depicting the personal and political conflicts of Henry II of England, his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, their children and their guests during Christmas 1183. It premiered on Broadway at the ...
''.
Proposed sequel
In the late 1970s, following a period of extended unemployment after having alerted authorities to illegal activities committed by Columbia Pictures president David Begelman
David Begelman (August 26, 1921 – August 7, 1995) was an American film producer, film executive and talent agent who was involved in a studio embezzlement scandal in the 1970s.
Life and career
Begelman was born to a Jewish family in New Yor ...
, Robertson wrote and attempted to produce ''Charly II'', to no avail.
Home media
''Charly'' was released on Region 1 DVD by MGM Home Entertainment
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Home Entertainment LLC (d/b/a MGM Home Entertainment and formerly known as MGM Home Video, MGM/CBS Home Video and MGM/UA Home Video) is the home video division of the American media company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
History 1 ...
on March 31, 2005.
See also
* List of American films of 1968
This is a list of American films released in 1968.
'' Oliver!'' won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Top-grossing films
# '' 2001: A Space Odyssey''
# '' Funny Girl''
# ''Planet of the Apes''
# '' Rosemary's Baby''
# ''The Odd Couple''
# ' ...
* ''Charlie and Algernon
''Charlie and Algernon'' is a musical with a book and lyrics by David Rogers and music by Charles Strouse. It is based on the 1966 novel ''Flowers for Algernon'' by Daniel Keyes. It received its premiere on December 21, 1978, at The Citadel Theat ...
'', a musical based upon the original story, ''Flowers for Algernon''.
* ''Flowers for Algernon'' (film), a 2000 television film starring Matthew Modine
Matthew Avery Modine (born March 22, 1959) is an American actor and filmmaker, who rose to prominence through his role as U.S. Marine Private/Sergeant J.T. "Joker" Davis in ''Full Metal Jacket''. His other film roles include the title character ...
as Charly.
References
External links
*
*
*
*
{{Daniel Keyes
1968 films
1960s science fiction drama films
ABC Motion Pictures films
American science fiction drama films
Films scored by Ravi Shankar
Films about intellectual disability
Films based on science fiction novels
Films directed by Ralph Nelson
Films featuring a Best Actor Academy Award-winning performance
Films based on television plays
Films set in Massachusetts
Films shot in Massachusetts
Human experimentation in fiction
Films with screenplays by Stirling Silliphant
Cinerama Releasing Corporation films
1968 drama films
1960s English-language films
1960s American films