Charly [1968] [DVD]

The storyline is simple enough. Charly Gordon, a gentle, mentally challenged soul with a thirst for knowledge, attends night school in an effort to get smart. His teacher is Alice Kinian, a sensitive and caring person, who recognizes Charly's determination, as well as his limitations. She takes an interest in him and refers him to an institute that has been doing research in increasing the intelligence of laboratory mice through neurosurgery and is now on the cusp of attempting that experimental neorosurgery on humans. The institute is in the process of selecting candidates for its clinical trials.

Charly goes to the institute where he undergoes a battery of tests and has his capability for problem solving compared to that of a laboratory mouse named Algernon, whose intelligence has been surgically enhanced. After much deliberation, the institute decides to take Charly on as a human guinea pig, after Ms. Kinian eloquently persuades them that Charly's determination and sweet disposition should overcome the fact that he is below the threshold level of intelligence that they were looking for in a human subject.

Charly undergoes the neurosurgery which initially appears to be a success. He gets smart, very smart. The inevitable romance with Ms. Kinian follows, as Charly exceeds all expectations. It is here that the film begins to fall apart and takes a swan dive. In an effort to show the changes in Charly's life, the film shows a collage of stills and scenes of Charly and Ms. Kinian that are ludicrous and almost embarrassing. They are presented in a fashion that is best described as psychedelic. It is done so poorly, as to make the film lose credibility, and it is downhill from there on, as the story becomes one dimensional. The screenplay writer and director should have stuck to the book, both in story and in theme, remembering that you can't fix what ain't broke.

Still, Cliff Robertson's performance, as is that of Claire Bloom, is worth watching. If you have already read the book, however, prepare to be disappointed. If you have not read the book, as yet, watch the movie first, and then read the book.

The storyline is simple enough. Charly Gordon, a gentle, mentally challenged soul with a thirst for knowledge, attends night school in an effort to get smart. His teacher is Alice Kinian, a sensitive and caring person, who recognizes Charly's determination, as well as his limitations. She takes an interest in him and refers him to an institute that has been doing research in increasing the intelligence of laboratory mice through neurosurgery and is now on the cusp of attempting that experimental neurosurgery on humans. The institute is in the process of selecting candidates for its clinical trials.

Charly goes to the institute where he undergoes a battery of tests and has his capability for problem solving compared to that of a laboratory mouse named Algernon, whose intelligence has been surgically enhanced. After much deliberation, the institute decides to take Charly on as a human guinea pig, after Ms. Kinian eloquently persuades them that Charly's determination and sweet disposition should overcome the fact that he is below the threshold level of intelligence that they were looking for in a human subject.

Charly undergoes the neurosurgery, which initially appears to be a success. He gets smart, very smart. The inevitable romance with Ms. Kinian follows, as Charly exceeds all expectations. It is here that the film begins to fall apart and takes a swan dive. In an effort to show the changes in Charly's life, the film shows a collage of stills and scenes of Charly and Ms. Kinian that are ludicrous and almost embarrassing. They are presented in a fashion that is best described as psychedelic. It is done so poorly, as to make the film lose credibility, and it is downhill from there on, as the story becomes one dimensional. The screenplay writer and director should have stuck to the book, both in story and in theme, remembering that you can't fix what ain't broke.

Still, Cliff Robertson's performance, as well as that of Claire Bloom, is worth watching. If you have already read the book, however, prepare to be disappointed. If you have not read the book, as yet, watch the movie first, and then read the book.

The 1968 movie version, of course, opens up the story and gets away from the first-person perspective that made "Flowers for Algernon" so compelling. To add insult to injury, there is now a romance between Charly with a character named Alice Kinian (Claire Bloom). Of course, this changes the whole dynamic of the film, at the cost of the poignancy of Charly's relationship with Algernon. As the title character Cliff Robertson won the Oscar and clearly the problem is not with his performance but rather with Stirling Silliphant's screenplay. Still, to be fair, any film adaptation of the fragile original story was going to lose what made it so great.

Consequently, this is one of those films that you will enjoy more if you have not read "Flowers for Algernon." Of course, if you have not read either the short story or the novel, you should. At least this was an intelligence "science fiction" film for its day, certainly a more human story than other films of that era, such as "2001: A Space Odyssey."