Charly is a movie that has a great central performance by Cliff Robertson and contains many wonderful moments, so it is pretty upsetting to see all of this hard work get thrown out the window thanks to some ridiculous choices by director Ralph Nelson. Based on the novel Flowers for Algernon, Charly tells the story of a mentally challenged man (Cliff Robertson) who, through an experimental surgical procedure, is given the chance to be a genius. While his mind adapts to these changes, his emotional world also begins to change and he finds himself falling in love with his doctor Alice (Claire Bloom).

All of the ingredients are at play for a touching movie and for the first hour Charly is compelling. Watching Cliff Robertson’s slow transformation is fascinating and the romance between he and Alice is initially handled in a delicate and gentle manner. Unfortunately, she has a fiancée and Charly knows that she is off-bounds. Suddenly, though, Ralph Nelson throws in ten minutes of inanity that completely destroys the natural flow of the entire film! Frustrated by his lack of romantic success, Charly, who is still emotionally undeveloped, essentially tries to rape Alice. The scene is shocking and Alice’s disgust at Charly is horrifying to witness. Then, for some reason I cannot fathom, Nelson throws in a psychedelic montage of split screen images involving Charly riding around on a motorcycle, a rock and roll band playing songs, and hippies. It’s like having the sixties throw up on a perfectly decent movie. Even worse (if that is possible) is that after this sequence is finished Charly encounters Alice once again and not only has she completely forgiven him, but she has left her fiancée because she realizes that she truly loves Charly! WHAT??? To top off this nightmarish sequence the audience is then privy to a scene where the now happy couple frolics in the forest. I couldn’t believe what was I watching. I like seeing couples get together in movies as much as the next person, but when they are arbitrarily tossed together with little emotional logic I get angry. Charly does manage to come to an intriguing conclusion, but the damage has been done. I hate judging a movie for ten measly minutes of bad footage, but when that footage is so critical to the emotional thrust of the film, it’s hard to excuse.