moonspinner55 Cliff Robertson won the Best Actor Oscar for his nice-try performance in this theatrical version of Daniel Keyes' novel "Flowers for Algernon" (previously filmed for television, with Robertson, as "The Two Worlds of Charley Gordon"). Robertson's Charly is mentally-challenged--a grown man with the mind of a small child--whose teacher (a young widow with a shapely figure!) volunteers Charly's participation in an experimental medical procedure (something about adding protein to the brain mass) which will greatly improve the patient's mental capabilities. Prestigious production given curiously 'mod' treatment--what with split-screen intervals and artistic montages. Much of it rests on Robertson's portrayal, though this role seems somewhat out of his range. Whether he's staring off into space or, much later, rattling off answers at a medical convention, Robertson never projects much of a personality (he's too stolid). The rest of the performers are equally colorless, though here it is a case of the manipulative writing, which is distinctly mediocre. The subject matter is, at its core, interesting (and original for 1968), though the irony inherent in the plot--that smarter doesn't equal happier--is laid out for us in elementary terms without ever being dealt with sufficiently. Producer-director Ralph Nelson gets a few hard-hitting moments on film, but his overall treatment is slack, with the possibilities inherent in the idea overwhelming Nelson. "Charly" means well, but it grasps and grabs for Deep Meanings without laying down a convincing foundation. ** from ****

bkoganbing After having done The Days Of Wine And Roses On the small screen and seeing Jack Lemmon get the part for the big screen, Cliff Robertson pulled a Katharine Hepburn. Like Kate the great who bought the screen rights to The Philadelphia Story and dictated the making of it to MGM, Robertson did the same for Charly which he had done on the US Steel Hour almost a decade earlier on television. He did better than Lemmon who only was nominated for Best Actor for Days Of Wine And Roses. Charly is the story of an amiable mildly retarded man who works and supports himself in a job at a bakery, but also has agreed to become an experimental subject to scientists, Claire Bloom, Leon Janney, and Lilia Skala. Janney has a theory in which he feels that the proper enzyme given and an operation and Robertson could start to function like a normal person.The operation has some foreseen and unforeseen consequences. One of them is that Robertson is one fully functioning male, but still lacks a whole lot of social skills. He forms an attachment to Bloom which is something she saw coming, but not necessarily her.More important he becomes far more aware of the world around him and how badly treated he was by a lot of people. One role I very much liked was that of his landlady Ruth White who was a woman with a big heart who does value Robertson as a person and gives him the respect any of us is due.Still the film belongs to Cliff Robertson who won an Oscar for Best Actor in 1968. Robertson had some stiff competition that year, but probably was helped by the fact that three of his competitors were British, Alan Bates for The Fixer, Ron Moody for Oliver, and Peter O'Toole for The Lion In Winter who if memory serves was the betting favorite. The other nominee was Alan Arkin for The Heart Is The Lonely Hunter. How he manages to go from a mildly retarded man to a person of no mean erudition is a wonderful process unfolding on the screen. Personally I think it ought to be required viewing in every acting class on the globe, the subtleties are something to behold.I don't claim to be any kind of scientific expert on this or any other scientific matter, but I would love to hear from those who know more as to whether the whole theory is feasible or not. In any event though Charly is a fine picture with both a message and a heart.

waynepenner "I want to be smarter, just so I could get a little closer, you know?" Charly GordonMade in the days when doctors smoked cigarettes, this is Cliff Robertson's brilliant portrayal of a man isolated from society by an IQ of 69 who through a brain operation becomes a genius.Robertson won a well-deserved Oscar for Best Actor in 1968 for his part in this wonderful and inspiring film, and it's a great movie, albeit on a "b-movie" budget. But entwined in its message is a dark reflection on how society treats people who are mentally handicapped.Charly is the nicest guy you would ever meet, considerate of all, kind, but simple and naïve. Everyone around him either laughs at him or is condescending toward him. No one sees him as a man, not even a human being, just whatever they label him as - "dumb-assed janitor", or just plain "moron". Then he gets his operation and becomes the smartest man on Earth, but still he is labeled, and still he is isolated.What I got most from this film is not a clinical study of mental retardation but the way society deals with mental retardation, and in this the film soars, and it will bring a tear or two if you have even a bit of humanity. It is a wonderful film, on many levels, testing us all on how we deal with those who are so unfortunate as to be mentally handicapped.In "Charly", society doesn't win in the end, but the movie does! 9 out of 10.

Yankeefan1313 This is the wost movie I have ever seen. This Movie is based on the book "Flowers for Algernon", but is missing almost everything that made the book good. In the movie there were no flashbacks, he never caught Gimpy stealing from Mr. Donner, he did not get his job back at the bakery at the end of the movie like he did in the book, no progress reports were written, his parents and sister were not even mentioned, Fay was not in the movie, the title of the movie has no meaning because he did not put Flowers on Algernon's grave, Charly and Alice moved to far to fast with there relationship when in the story Charly kept getting sick when he and Alice were getting intimate, and in the movie Charly seemed to get smart too fast which took away from the suspense of the movie. I was much happier with the book, the movie has too many holes in the story.