Charly
| Charly | |
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1968 Theatrical Poster
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| Directed by | Ralph Nelson |
| Produced by | Ralph Nelson |
| Screenplay by | Stirling Silliphant |
| Based on | Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes |
| Starring |
Cliff Robertson Claire Bloom Leon Janney Lilia Skala Dick Van Patten |
| Music by | Ravi Shankar |
| Cinematography | Arthur Ornitz |
| Edited by | Fredric Steinkamp |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | Cinerama (1968, original) MGM (2005, DVD) |
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Release date
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Running time
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106 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $2,225,000 |
| Box office | $8,500,000 (rentals) |
Charly (marketed and stylized as CHAЯLY) is a 1968 American science fiction drama film, directed and produced by Ralph Nelson, and written by Stirling Silliphant.
The film stars Cliff Robertson as Charly Gordon, an intellectually disabled adult who is selected by two doctors to undergo a surgical procedure that triples his IQ as it did for Algernon, a laboratory mouse who also underwent the same procedure; additional roles are co-played by Claire Bloom, Lilia Skala, Leon Janney and Dick Van Patten.
During production, Silliphant adapted the movie from the story Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. The film received positive reviews to date, and was a massive success at the box office and home media sales.
Charly Gordon (Cliff Robertson), an intellectually disabled man with a strong desire to make himself smarter, has been attending night school for two years where he has been taught by Alice Kinnian (Claire Bloom) to read and write. However, his spelling remains poor and he is even unable to spell his own name.
Alice takes Charly to the "Nemur-Straus" clinic run by Dr. Richard Nemur and Dr. Anna Straus. Nemur and Straus have been increasing the intelligence of laboratory mice with a new surgical procedure and are looking for a human test subject. As part of a series of tests to ascertain Charly's suitability for the procedure, he is made to race Algernon, one of the laboratory mice. Algernon physically runs through a maze while Charly uses a pencil to trace his way through a diagram of the same maze. Charly is disappointed that he consistently loses the races. Nevertheless, he is given the experimental surgery.
After the surgery, Charly is initially angered that he is not immediately smarter than he was before and still loses in races against Algernon. Eventually, however, he beats Algernon in a race and then his intelligence starts increasing rapidly. Alice continues to teach him, but he soon surpasses her. Charly's co-workers also try to tease him by making him work on a machine that they believe he will not be able to work. When Charly shows he can work the machine, his co-workers are not pleased with the fact that he is now intelligent and cannot be teased anymore. They sign a petition against him and he loses his job at the bakery. Charly also starts staring at Alice's and breasts as well as drawing and painting abstract nude figures of her. He also questions whether Alice loves her fiancé. One night, Charly follows Alice back to her apartment and sexually assaults her, pulling her to the floor and kissing her forcefully until she breaks free by slapping him.
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