Charly (1968)
| Charly (1968) |
| Cast: | Cliff Robertson | Charly Gordon |
| Claire Bloom | Alice Kinian | |
| Lilia Skala | Dr. Anna Strauss | |
| Leon Janney | Dr. Nemur | |
| Ruth White | Mrs. Apple | |
| Dick Van Patten | Bert | |
| Skipper McNally | Gimpy | |
| Barney Martin | Hank | |
| William Dwyer | Joey | |
| Dan Morgan | Paddy |
Review by Bret Walker
Some books are so good, that they overshadow the movies made to represent them. Unfortunately, this is one of them. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes tells the tale of Charly Gordon, a mentally retarded man who struggles just to be like anyone else, a man who just wants to be smart. It's a tale of courage told with Charly's words through Charly's eyes. The writing is brilliant, and the story compelling and moving.
The movie, however, while good in its own right, has none of the brilliance of the book. It's shown to the audience in the third person point of view, and if not for the tremendous and Oscar-winning performance by Cliff Robertson, we'd have no insight into Charly's soul at all. But it is Cliff Robertson's performance as Charly Gordon that really carries this film. The other actors really come accross as plastic figures in a Hollywood movie, when the story is worthy of so much more.
However, it's still a good movie. If not compared to the book, it is an excellent movie (which is why I gave it three stars). It's topical and intriguing and very modern for 1968, a sort of science fiction Easy Rider in parts, and at other times more like The Andromeda Strain.
If you haven't read the book Flowers for Algernon, by all means read it. But see this movie first. If nothing else, it will prepare you for what is to come, and the book won't ruin the movie as it did for me.
Rating:
Trivia:
The director, Ralph Nelson, appears briefly in this film as a speaker at the convention where Charly makes his grim discovery.
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