Charly (marketed and stylized as CHAЯLY) is a 1968 American drama film directed and produced by Ralph Nelson and written by Stirling Silliphant. It is based on Flowers for Algernon, a science-fiction short story (1958) and subsequent novel (1966) by Daniel Keyes.
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 had done for a laboratory mouse who underwent the same procedure. The film also stars Claire Bloom, Lilia Skala, Leon Janney, Dick Van Patten and Barney Martin. Robertson had played the same role in a 1961 television adaptation titled "The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon," an episode of the anthology series The United States Steel Hour.
The film received positive reviews and was a success at the box office and later in home media sales. Robertson won Best Actor at the Academy Awards.
Plot
Charly Gordon is an intellectually disabled man who lives in Boston. He has a desire to learn and has attended night school for two years, taking a class taught by Alice Kinnian. He learns to read and write, though his spelling and penmanship are poor and he is unable to spell his own name. He works as a janitor at a bakery, where his coworkers amuse themselves by taking advantage of his disability, and enjoys playing with children at a playground.
Alice takes Charly to researchers Dr. Richard Nemur and Dr. Anna Straus, who have been investigating methods for increasing intelligence. Having successfully tested a surgical procedure on a lab mouse named Algernon, they are looking for a human test subject. They put Charly through a battery of aptitude tests and have him try to solve a series of paper mazes while Algernon runs through models of them. Charly consistently loses to Algernon, but is selected for the surgery.
After surgery, Charly loses to Algernon again and is frustrated at not immediately becoming smarter. After some time passes, he finally beats Algernon and his intelligence begins to increase. His coworkers tell him to operate a complex machine, hoping that he will break it so they can have the day off, but he successfully operates it. Embarrassed and frightened by his new intelligence, they persuade the bakery owners to fire Charly. Alice continues teaching him, but his intelligence continues to increase and eventually surpasses hers. Lacking emotional maturity, Charly becomes infatuated with Alice and confesses his love for her, but she sharply rejects his advances. He flees in an act of rebellion but eventually returns to Boston, and the two start to consider marriage.
Nemur and Straus present their research at a scientific convention. After playing the film of Charly's original aptitude tests, they bring him out for a question-and-answer session. He is now the intellectual equal or superior of everyone in the audience, but he has also developed a cynical view of humanity that the attendees mistake for humor. He reveals that Algernon has lost his enhanced intelligence and died, facts that the research team kept from him, and expects to undergo a similar decline. Fleeing the convention and seeing hallucinations of his previous self everywhere, Charly stops to help a busboy pick up a tray of dropped glasses after observing that he is intellectually disabled.
Charly overhears Alice, Nemur, and Straus discussing his situation and offers to assist in finding a way to preserve his intelligence, but their combined efforts prove fruitless. He falls into a depression and asks Alice never to visit him again. Some time later, Alice sees Charly playing with children on the playground, having fully regressed to his original level of disability.
Cast
Cliff Robertson – Charly Gordon
Claire Bloom – Alice Kinnian
Lilia Skala – Anna Straus
Leon Janney – Richard Nemur
Ruth White – Mrs. Apple
Dick Van Patten – Bert (as Richard Van Patten) Edward McNally – Gimpy (as Skipper McNally) Barney Martin – Hank William Dwyer – Joey Dan Morgan – Paddy
Music by
Ravi Shankar
Production history
Development
The short story Flowers for Algernon had been the basis of "The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon", a 1961 television adaptation in which Robertson had also starred for The United States Steel Hour. Robertson had starred in a number of television shows that were turned into films with other actors playing his roles, such as Days of Wine and Roses. He bought the rights to the story, hoping to star in the film version as well.