CHARLY

US, 1968, 103 minutes, Colour.
Cliff Robertson, Claire Bloom, Lilia Skala.
Directed by Ralph Nelson.

Charly is a popular film tackling a potentially difficult subject for a mass audience. Charly is a mentally impaired man, subject of an experiment that makes him intelligent, but victim of scientific ambition that falls to take adequate account of his human and emotional needs, This is science-fiction presented in a rather glamorous and lush setting.

Cliff Robertson won the Oscar for his performance in 1968 and shows an excellent range of acting in his presentation of the slow-witted Charly and of the tragic intelligent man.

Director Ralph Nelson, whose films include a mixture of fine explorations of his subjects like Requiem for a Heavyweight, Lilies of the Field, Soldier Blue, Flight of the Doves and some commercial oddities tick tick tick, or The Wrath of God. An entertaining film.

It was remade in the 1990s for television with the title Flowers for Algernon starring Matthew Modine.

1. What was the final impact of this film? Why?

2. What kind of a person was Charly? Did you tend to laugh at him at the beginning or did you feel sorry for him? What incidents made him sympathetic to the audience? How?
3. Were his fellow-workers at the bakery cruel to him or was it just harmless fun?

4. What impact did Charly's lessons have on you? How old mentally do you think he was? What of Charly's home, his attempts to write, his bus tours etc?

5. How sympathetic was Miss Kinnian? Did she communicate with Charly during the lessons? What was Charly's reaction to her? At what age-equivalent was his reaction to her?

6. How hopeful did you feel about the operation? Why?

7. What really happened to Charly from the operation? How were the mazes with the mice symbolic of Charly's growth?

8. How impressive was Charly's development? How healthy was it? Was it too intellectually pressurised?

9. How did Charly’s relationship with Miss Kinnian change? He had been brutal and jealous. How was he in his new state?

10. Why did he go through his 'hippy stage’? Did this make sense within the film? What mental age was it the equivalent of? Were these sequences well-done with the split-screen technique? How?

11. How impressive was Charly's address to the public and his answering of questions? What messages were there in the questions and answers? What mental age was this the equivalent of? Haw far had Charly come?

12. Was the lyrical sequence of Charly’s love fov Miss Kinnion important for the film or did it intrude into it? Was the photography too autumnally pretty, or did it fit well into the film? Why?

13. Did you like the scientists? What were their motives and ambitions? How humane were they? What personal regard did they have for Charly? Why didn't they programme his emotional development with his intellectual development? What impact did the death of the mouse have on you? on Charly?

14. How sad was Charly's regression? Why?

15. What is the significance of this story - about being truly human, about science and progress, about scientists? How pessimistic was the film?