Charly

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For other uses, see Charly (disambiguation).

Charly
movie poster from 1968
Directed by	Ralph Nelson
Produced by	Ralph Nelson
Written by	screenplay by Stirling Silliphant from the novel by Daniel Keyes
Starring	Cliff Robertson Claire Bloom Leon Janney Lilia Skala Dick Van Patten
Music by	Ravi Shankar
Cinematography	Arthur Ornitz
Distributed by	Cinerama/Selmar Pictures
Release date(s)	September 23, 1968
Running time	103 min
Country	USA
Language	English
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Charly is a 1968 film which tells the story of a mentally retarded bakery worker. He becomes a subject of an experiment to increase his mental capacity. After he reaches genius level, he realizes that the treatment is temporary, and that he will soon revert to his previous mental ability. It stars Cliff Robertson, Claire Bloom, Lilia Skala, Leon Janney and Dick Van Patten.

The movie was adapted by Stirling Silliphant from the novel Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. In turn, the novel was based on a short story of the same title, by the same author. The movie was directed by Ralph Nelson.

Cliff Robertson won the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his work in this movie.

Robertson had appeared in many television versions of screenplays that had gone on to be made into movies starring other actors (most notably Days of Wine and Roses, which had starred Jack Lemmon). When he starred in the The Two Worlds of Charly Gordon, a 1961 television adaptation of Flowers for Algernon, he bought the movie rights so that he would be certain to star in the film version as well.

[edit] References in pop culture

The movie is referenced in the 1996 episode "Arcade" from the television series sitcom NewsRadio. In the episode, Lisa thinks she's getting dumber because Beth is faster at solving a jumble puzzle. Dave jokes, "Well we knew this day would come, Algernon." Lisa, after a moment's pause, rattles off, "Flowers for Algernon, written by Daniel Keyes, inspired the 1968 film Charly, for which Cliff Robertson won an Oscar for best actor. I should have known that faster." Dave responds, "No, you shouldn't have known it at all." After this, Lisa decides to retake the SAT with Dave to prove that her mental skills have not declined.

An episode of The Simpsons from 2001, entitled "HOMЯ", is a loose parody of Flowers for Algernon and CHAЯLY. In the episode, Homer is given an operation to remove a crayon from his brain, resulting in increased intelligence. He proceeds to lose his friends, and consequently requests that the crayon be re-inserted. Not unlike Charlie, he cannot understand a note he wrote to Lisa while intelligent.