Charly
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Movie Reviews of Charly
Movie Review: A dispiriting scientific breakthrough
Summary: 4 Stars
The hopelessly dated film "Charly" a product of the psychedelic 60's based on the book "Flowers for Algernon" revolves around an mentally challenged adult Charly Gordon played by Cliff Robertson. Charly lives a lonely solitary existence working as a laborer in a bakery, often the brunt of practical jokes at the hand of his more "cerebral" colleagues. Despite his handicap he tries to better himself by attending night school where he is tutored by Mrs. Kinian played Claire Bloom.
Bloom playing a Phd. psychology candidate nominates Charly for a revolutionary experiment conducted by neuroscientists Drs. Straus and Nemur played respectively by Lilia Skala and Leon Janney. They had amazing success implanting brain tissue into a white mouse named Algernon significantly increasing his intelligence. They were now ready to attempt this procedure on a human subject and Charly was to be their guinea pig.
With Bloom as his teacher, Robertson's mental capabilities grew to genius level as he began digesting quantum amounts of information. His emotional development however did not grow at the same pace. Eventually he and Bloom fell in love, as his amazing tranformation is about to be demonstrated before the scientific community. At the conference, Robertson learns that the results of the operation are only temporary and he desperately tries to use his new found intelligence to prevent his life from reverting back.
Robertson, a surprise Oscar winner in 1969 gave a poignant portrayal of Charly Gordon, a lonely retarded adult who learned that an increase of intelligence and awareness didn't necessarily translate into a happier existence.
Movie Review: Decent movie, great performance by Cliff Robertson
Summary: 4 Stars
The principal strength of this movie is the acting by Cliff Robertson. This was an exceptionally challenging role, that required a real breadth of acting style to portray the changes that the protagonist went through. The oscar was well deserved. The story moves along well and you feel the pathos of the two main characters. Some of the minor characters are very one-dimensional and not well acted to boot. The movie shows some of the influences of the late sixties when it was produced, but many of the underlying issues such as treatment of the mentally challenged and medical experimentation are still quite current.
The book on which the movie is based, Flowers for Algernon, is a true classic of science fiction and a really memorable book. The movie scriptwriters chose to focus on the relationship between Charlie Gordon and his teacher, and spent less time on the nature of Charlie's intellectual development and what it meant to his life. The book is actually based on an earlier novella that Daniel Keyes wrote that won the Hugo Award. I have always felt that the expansion into novel length did not add anything to the story development and in fact blunted the powerful effect of the novella's roller coaster ride.
In short, I would recommend this movie to anyone who hasn't seen it. I would recommend the book even more strongly.
Movie Review: Good despite a few flaws
Summary: 4 Stars
Daniel Keyes's Flowers for Algernon was voted one of the greatest stories of the past 25 years when I read the story in junior high in the mid-60s. Eventually made into this movie, I enjoyed it despite several points where the movie departs from the book and gets pretty hokey, when the director should have had the sense to stick with the original book. As has been mentioned before, the photo montage sequence of Charlie with Miss Kinian and Charlie's riding off on the motorcycle was almost embarrasingly bad (maybe they were recalling the movie, "Then Came Bronson," from the same period). But overall Robertson's portrayal of Charlie was engaging and believable and the scene where he addresses the assembled scientists is certainly very memorable as a demonstration of his newly attained genius. "Brave new loves, brave new hates," was how he summarized the coming age, a quote which turned out to be more prescient than anyone could have imagined. The movie in many ways epitomizes the 60s fascination with personal transformation through chemical means, and if only genius were so easily attainable as taking a drug. We may never achieve such advanced brain science but for its time the movie was a poignant and credible portrayal of fleetingly attained but ultimately lost genius.Movie Review: More than an actor, Clift was a model !
Summary: 4 Stars
There have been male actings which literally overpass its own condition to inscribe in a very special category : the model .
To make me understand of you I will make a little account of that statement through the decades and not all of these actings were prized with the Academy Award .
In the twenties : Emil Jannings with The last laugh .
In the thirties : Paul Muni with Scarface and Edward G. Robinson with Little Caesar.
In the forties : Orson Welles with Citizen and Olivier with Hamlet .
In the fifties : Charlton Heston with Ben Hur , Charles Laughton with The Hobson choice and Olivier with Richard III .
In the sixties : George C. Scott with Patton , Clift Robertson with Charly , Anthony Quinn with Zorba and Peter O Toole with Lawrence .
In the seventies : Marlon Brando with The last tango , The Godfather and Apocalypse now , Dustin Hoffman with Lenny and klaus Kinski with Aguirre .
In the eighties : Ben Kingsley with Gandhi .
In the nineties : Anthony Hopkins with Titus .
So considering this premise , the film simply is not at the same level than this outstanding and exceptional acting .
These unbalances are more frequent than one can imagine .
And this is one of these cases .
Movie Review: Different Viewpoint
Summary: 4 Stars
I recently saw the movie, then read the book and watched the movie again. I think the director did a fair job at recreating the book, though probabaly gave into the feeling that he had to please the audience more than stick to what the film really should have been. The psychedelic montage of Charly on the motorcycle probably pleased audiences and helped to even draw a few people in tht normally wouldnt have watched a movie like this. However, I think he did, at times, hit the nail on the head by showing how people treat someone that is mentally retarded, the sort of coming of age, and how a mentally retarded person acts differently than a more intelligent person. It is a comparison movie that strayed some from the book, but was still a very good movie. I highly recommend it to everyone. If nothing else, watch it to laugh at the oh-so-60s sequences and get a laugh, and in the long run, you'll learn something about yourself along the way.