FILM REVIEW - CHARLY

Last night I caught "Charly" on TCM. Never seen it before.

I've read the book "Flowers for Algernon" a number of times and always loved it. I was first introduced to Charlie Gordon and the genius mouse Algernon in the short story version of the tale (written in 1959 by Daniel Keyes, who in 1966 expanded the story into a novella), which was included in one of the literature anthologies we used in elementary or middle school. We didn't read it for class, but I found it and was fascinated.

If you don't know the story, it's pretty simple: retarded man undergoes experimental brain surgery that increases his intelligence to genius levels. He's thrown into a world he's not emotionally prepared for, falls in love with his teacher, rebels against his doctors, only to learn that the success of the surgery is temporary. He slips back into his former world.

As a novella it's a great read, told entirely in the first person, in the form of Charlie's (he initially misspells his own name, hence "Charly") journal entries. We get to see his progress through his writing, and it's downright heartbreaking when he begins to lose what he'd gained.

The film is classic 1968. Split screen effects, a wonderful "Charlie goes into the world, rides motorcycles, smokes reefer, and dances to bad music" acid-trip montage, a giant overemotive 60's soundtrack. There're some nice sequences of the smart Charlie being chased by his alter ego Charly that are pretty creepy. Cliff Robertson took home the Oscar for Best Actor, and he does a damned good job. He's utterly convincing as both the slow, happy Charly and the quick, angry Charlie.

Missing is all the psychological background in the book - Charlie's childhood memories, his relationships with his parents and sister, and his longing to improve. The bittersweet sadness of a man who just can't seem to see what everyone else sees is a powerful part of the book, while the love story becomes the central thread of the film. This allows us some nice soft-focus-lovers-frollicking-in-the-park bits, which isn't all bad. As Alice Kinnian, Charly's teacher and Charlie's lover, Claire Bloom even provides a thoroughly entertaining pseudo-British accent straight out of the 50's.

Good fun.