Hitchcoc Cheryl Gordon is a mentally handicapped man, played wonderfully by Cliff Robertson, who is tormented by society. The novella it is based on is a study in how the brain begins to change and his acuity with it. The language changes from stilted phrases to long, complex sentences. Here, things happens fast. Charly has brain surgery and begins to grow in intellect. It is a quantum leap in that he rises to high levels overnight. This is OK because we accept it in the movie, but his lack of experiences aren't really dealt with. Imagine a man not even knowing what the stock market is and then investing in it. He would still have to have the experience of some economic knowledge development. This is a story of great tragedy because the experiences of love and longing stay but he is left to his own designs.

ironhorse_iv Directed by Ralph Nelson and adapted from the novel 'Flowers for Algernon' by Daniel Keyes, the movie tells the story of Charlie Gordon (Cliff Robertson), a mentally handicapped bakery worker. I'm glad the movie change the title from Flowers for Algernon (which refers to the protagonist's fellow test subject - a white mouse) to Charly. Charlie soon become a test subject of his own, to an experiment to increase human intelligence. Led on, by his teacher Alice Kinnian (Claire Bloom) and other doctors, Charlie agree to the new surgical procedure, not knowing if it is going to work or not. When it was done on Gordon, things become clearer for him, leading to both positive triumph and negative tragic results. I have to say, without Cliff Robertson as Charlie Gordon, this movie wouldn't had work. Cliff Robertson brings in the role, both the childish charm, and the smarts. Cliff Robertson has always wanted to do this movie, ever since starting in the dramatic television TV Show's CBS's Steel Hour, where one of its episodes was 'The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon', an adaption of the same novel by Daniel Keyes. After a number of his TV shows, in which he acted upon were turned into films with other actors playing his role, such as 1961's the Hustler & 1962's Days of Wine and Roses. Robertson bought the rights to the story, hoping to star in the film version one day. To my knowledge, I heard that 1961's TV episode and this movie written by Stirling Silliphant are mostly similar to each other in the beginning, but the movie has some really awful montages to make the length of the story longer than a one hour movie. There is the awful creepiest and disturbing series of montages about Charlie learning about love & sex. The movie could had explore it in a clever way, but it just goes off the wall acid trip with awkward sexually assaults. The film uses a montage sequence to show Charlie with a mustache and goatee riding a motorcycle, kissing a series of different women, smoking and dancing. It's never explain if it was just a dream or it really did happen. I thought it really went so far off from the rest of the film, that it was distracting. I know, the producers probably wanted to show that he is going through extreme adolescence due to the speed of knowledge being fed into him, but I really doubt a growing genius is going to go all Brando from the Wild Ones. He's more liking to become a book nerd than that. About the romance, I thought it could had been told better, when he passes normal IQ and moves into the genius category. I would love to see the film explain more on his emotional development falling behind, as he become more misanthropy jaded and cynical. Unlike other critics, I love the Q&A sequence. It really hits home to see how much he was right about society in the future. You can really tell, the movie was made in the 1960's with this sequence in the film. You get all those split screens, multiple images, still shots or slow motion that kinda works, but also dissonantly out of place. It could had work more, if the movie follow the same format as the book. The book was told entirely in journal entries or progress reports. It does a wonderful job of showing how Charlie's intelligence changes. It is often used in School Study Media. There are many different between the book and the film version. The movie barely spoke about Charlie's abusive parents. Charlie's sexual issues are due to traumatic experiences with his mother, Rose; he almost has a reverse Oedipus Complex, fearing his mother and relying on his father for protection. There is no mention of the character of Fay Lilliman that was Charlie's love interest besides Alice. She was an overtly sexual, artistic, and whimsical person that could had been used in the scenes between Charlie as an adolescence male and Charlie as an ego mastermind. Nor does the movie explore Charlie's dealing with homosexuality. There isn't any mention of the religion tones such as the speech about Adam & Eve and the tree of knowledge. I found the biggest lost is the symbol of the window. The window symbolizes the emotional distance that Charlie feels from others of normal mental ability. I understand that even a slim novel has to be trimmed to fit into movie form, but other things were added that brought nothing of comparable value to the film. Film's direction is a bit clumsy in the middle, but it does find the right path by the end. I love the metaphors mention of Plato's Allegory of the Cave & Don Quixote. That really got me to like it. People who've read the literary work before seeing the film are usually biased against the film. I am definitely not part of that crowd, I found the movie thought provoking. The movie does show the mistreatment of the mentally disabled. There is a key scene where Charlie as a genius, helps a retarded waiter whose clumsiness is cruelly laughter at by the pub's patrons. This is after he finds out that he also been mistreated at his own job by his co-workers and Charlie himself repeatedly looks down on those around him for not being at his level of super-intelligence. Charlie struggles with the same tendency toward the same prejudice and condescension he has seen in other people, when dealing with the mentally disabled. Then there is the tension between intellect and emotion. Are people more compassionate, warm, and friendly when dumb down or when you gains intelligence, we tend to fight more often? Overall: Albert Einstein once quoted 'the different between stupidity and genius is that genius has it's limited'. While this movie is indeed limited, it was worth watching

JDFeltz I saw this movie at the drive-in when I was 12. I recall finding it to be a touching tragedy. I used to volunteer with "the special ed class", and found the students there to be gentle and grateful and affectionate, and could never understand how the other kids could make fun of them the way they did. But that only explains how and why this touched me personally, even at the age of 12.Reviews some 30 years after this film was made are very critical, calling it 'schlock', and criticizing the simplification of a complex issue. However, over the last 30-40 years, society has become more enlightened about both mental retardation, but also about what science can and cannot do. It was easier to suspend belief and go with the concept.At the time, this movie conveyed something new about how a mentally retarded person might view their situation....that alone made this film unique; lots of people never even considered the feelings of the mentally retarded, so this film surely opened some eyes.And way ahead of it's time (I'm sure this was never considered in making the film), because it conveys the feelings and reactions of someone who is losing their intellectual capacity....such as those suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's. At that time, little thought was given by the average person about the feelings of either the mentally retarded, or people with Alzheimer's or dementia.I'm sure the book was better than the movie; that almost always goes without saying. However, movies reach audiences that books sometimes don't, and this movie reached a new audience.I'm afraid too many reviewers are unable to see an older movie and not hold it to the same standards, socially, scientifically and a cinematography standpoint. Cinema has evolved, as has society and science, and it's quite interesting to watch "Charly" with that in mind.

citybuilder9 Let me just start off by saying that I absolutely loved the book "Flowers for Algernon", which we read in my lit class at school. It was probably the best book I've ever been forced to read. Also at our school, they made us watch this movie after finishing it. I found this film at best a poor adaption of a great novel and at worst, a disastrous attempt at surrealist film-making.First, the positives: The actors, especially male and female leads are excellent and have a definite chemistry together on screen, however they seem a bit confined by the material they are given to perform.Now, the far more lengthly section of my review: the negatives. 1. Cinematography. The whole movie seems to have been shot in a style to suggest being on a bad acid-trip (not that I would know the feeling.). Many scenes are an endless, ridiculously over metaphorical montage where it would have been much simpler and more effective to use a more straight forward approach. For some odd reason, the director also decided to use a split screen effect at certain arbitrary points in the film for no apparent reason other than possibly the notion that it looked cool.2. Writing. This is probably my biggest problem with the film. The writing in the movie is simply incredulous, seeing as it not only departs from the book in unnecessary ways, which I will detail later, but it also changes the plot in ways that make no logical sense, such as changing it so that the doctors don't tell Charlie that the effects of the operation may not be permanent, not something a 20th century medical professional is likely to do given that a patient must give informed consent before undergoing an operation. The beginning portion drags on, filled with scenes of Charlie doing childish activities such as playing on a slide or driving bumper cars to the point where one feels like jumping up on one's chair and screaming "We get it! He's retarded!". The most nonsensical plot twist is the series of scenes in which Charlie, not being emotionally developed, tries to force himself on Ms. Kinnian and is, as a result, slapped and called "A stupid moron", then departs on a motorcycle trip for no readily apparent reason and comes back and is suddenly sleeping with Ms. Kinnian, whose fiancée just magically disappears, which leaves the audience scratching its head and saying "Didn't she just slap and insult him two scenes ago? I wish my life worked like that."3. The Ending. I have given this it's own section because I feel it deserves special attention. At the end of the novel, the reader basically has two ways of interpreting it: Relocation or Suicide (the latter being my preferred interpretation). However, this version removes all of the guesswork by simply giving you no clues as to what happens after he regresses back to his former state. Instead, you get a long, stretched out scene in which he is chased by his former self through long, white hallways for about five minutes, and one is left with a similar reaction I mentioned having during the beginning portion. This is one of the few movies in which I have been shocked to see the end credits, as it just ends with a freeze-frame of Charlie on the teeter-totter and leaves the story completely unresolved.I'm sorry if the above review seems a bit rantish, however these are simply my criticisms of the film. If you enjoyed it, then that's all well and good. To each his own.