Charly

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

I have always been interested in stories that explore the positive and negative aspects of the human mind’s desire for unrestricted freedom and the opposite need to limit liberation since numerous possibilities can cause instability and unhappiness. A few films that have dealt with these issues are Rebel Without a Cause, The Shawshank Redemption, Limitless and Lucy. Charly, a 1968 movie, examines the benefits derived from being highly intelligent versus the happy, though vulnerable state of ignorant innocence.

The film starts on a playground with Charly Gordon, (Cliff Robertson, who won the Best Actor Oscar for this performance) a mentally challenged adult, enjoying the slide and swing in the company of children. He wears a suit that is too small for him, which implies he is internally a child inhabiting the body of an adult. The story takes place in Boston, a city with a number of renowned colleges, which emphasizes that Charly is out of touch here with the level of intelligence in his surroundings. We see him listening to college students on a campus arguing esoteric themes in Goethe’s Faust. The brainy discussions make him feel like an outcast, but they also inspire him. Charly tries to write on the blackboard in his apartment, but the words are misspelled. He has a disheveled appearance, like a boy who plays in the outdoors. His mouth is open and unsymmetrical, as if it is struggling to say the correct things. His tongue keeps moving, implying he is trying to form what to say. He shuffles when he walks, looking like a boy attempting to deal with his developing body.

At an adult literacy class, taught by Alice Kinnian (Claire Bloom), Charly struggles at writing on the blackboard. After class, she says he missed showing up at a clinic for some tests. He says he forgot, went to a library instead, and was thrilled to see so many books. He experiences joy to be in the presence of so much learning in front of him, but is incapable of tapping into that knowledge. At the clinic Alice conducts some basic tests that Charly struggles with, although he does answer correctly. He is observed through a two-way mirror, and becomes distracted by making faces like a kid looking at his own reflection. The film employs split screens to show test drawings and Charly’s reaction simultaneously. His limited mental capacity is demonstrated by his not even being sure about his memories. He has glimpses of being sick, but the woman taking care of him may have been at the “institution,” which shows custody was given up and he became a ward of the state, removing him from the consistent support of a traditional family.

Charly works as a janitor at a bakery, and suffers the teasing and pranks of fellow employees, who act like bullies, building themselves up by exerting power over those less fortunate. They put dough ingredients in his locker that expand and then laugh as he tries to scoop out the mess. He laughs with them, not even aware of their torment because he is incapable of comprehending malicious behavior.

 At the clinic, the scientists put Algernon, a white mouse, in a maze, and want Charly to try and beat Algernon to the finish. (The image of mice in a maze suggests an analogy to people trying to find out solutions to situations that have confined their understanding of life). Charly is so sweet that he worries that the mouse won’t get his food if he doesn’t solve the puzzle, but Alice assures him the mouse won’t go hungry. The scientists give Charly a diagram of the maze and want him to draw a line from start to finish. He always takes out his lucky rabbit foot when doing tests, as if looking for some magic to help him, and which is what the scientists, in a way, later offer him. The mouse beats Charly.

Alice takes him home, but Charly is upset because he is not as smart as Algernon. She wants to see his apartment, which he feels embarrassed to show because it is a dingy room. He has a picture of the guys he works with and says they are his best friends, and it is sad that he feels that way. He sits in a chair that looks like one meant for a child at school, again reflecting his mental age. She tells him that the reason that Algernon solved the maze puzzle quickly is that he had an operation that made him smarter. They are ready to try the experiment on a human and she asks if he would like that procedure. He looks away as if trying to picture a different world. He says he would like to be smarter so he could understand the words that others speak. He looks down when saying this, almost ashamed of his lack of mental powers.

Charly competes in more races with Algernon as the walls in the maze and the lines in Charly’s diagrams are altered to vary the solutions. Charly’s Full Scale IQ is determined to be 70. The scientists feel that he is too old and his mental ability too low to be the first test subject for their intelligence expanding experiment. Despite no physical danger resulting from the operation, they say that young people would adjust better to the quick psychological changes that will occur following the treatment. Alice argues that Charly has perseverance, having attended two years of night school to improve his reading. Also, she says that he does not have a personality prone to frustration, and is pleasant despite being tormented by others. The female scientist, Dr. Anna Strauss (Lilia Skala), says that there is the positive factor that Alice is a teacher whom Charly trusts, and whom he will need following the procedure to aid him in an accelerated learning program. Alice isn’t sure she can devote the time since she is about to work with her fiancé on a joint thesis. This excuse shows that Alice’s relationship with her boyfriend is more cerebral than romantic.

There is a short scene showing Charly riding a Boston tour bus, which illustrates his desire to learn. The bus driver knows him because he takes the same tour every Sunday. This information shows Charly’s limitations since he cannot retain the information provided on the tour. However, the fact that he keeps showing up every week demonstrates his desire to obtain knowledge.

His fellow workers pressure Charly to go out for a beer so they can pull off one of their recurring pranks. They have the bartender turn off the jukebox and convince Charly that if he talks to the machine it will come back on. As he speaks to it, the bartender plugs the power cord in, and the music starts playing again. They also tell him, because he is unable to conceive of them deceiving him, that if he goes to a certain street intersection, he will see that is the place where the snow always starts at the beginning of a storm. They are keeping Charly in a state that he later says prevented him from seeing things as they really are. Exploiting Charly’s considerate nature, Gimpy (Edward McNally) says that when he sees the first flakes, he should call the bar so they will leave before it turns into a blizzard. At the street location, a police car stops and the officers ask Charly what is he doing. When he says he is waiting for it to snow, they laugh and call him “stupid.” He hears that remark and looks sad as he walks to the playground, the place his childlike personality feels at home, and sits dejected on a swing seat. Alice finds him there and she tells him he qualifies for the operation. He is elated, and starts to swing higher and higher, showing how he wants to soar above his situation.

Charly undergoes the surgical procedure. The first person he sees when he wakes up is Alice, looking like a guardian angel. He says he doesn’t feel any smarter. They run tests, but there is no discernible improvement. Charly feels frustrated and defeated, and runs out of the clinic. He lets out his frustration at the bumper car ride at a carnival (another place meant for children) which shows he feels he is being battered at every turn. Charly finds Algernon and the maze in his apartment, and he assumes that the people at the clinic want him to keep testing himself to see if his problem solving improves. He is upset but his landlady, Mrs. Apple (Ruth White), who has a dog for her companion, tells him of the joys of having a pet and urges him to take care of Algernon. He looks at what he has written down on a candy wrapper while on his bus tour and looks at what he wrote on his blackboard. He seems to have some insight into spelling, significantly, the word “school,” a place where one learns. He then wants to race Algernon again. This time he beats the mouse, and yells his triumph through the streets. He announces his victory at the clinic.

A little time passes, and as Alice writes on a blackboard, Charly is admiring her body, his interest in carnal knowledge increasing with his mental powers. He is able to punctuate the paragraph she wrote. Then on the other side of the board, he shows her sentences that don’t make sense to her until he correctly punctuates them for her. He is now the one administering the tests. She announces the role reversal when she says, “The student surpasses the teacher.” He is now asking questions about her personal life, since his attraction for her is growing. He learns that her husband died, and asks if she loves “Frank,” the fiancé. She skirts the issue, giving him books to read to make him focus on his mind instead of her body.

Back at his place Charly has a video teaching machine that allows him to pause to answers questions, which he does correctly. He consults his blackboard on which he posts his daily schedule, and it now has a list that contains no spelling errors. His co-workers continue to ridicule Charly, telling him it’s April Fool’s Day, which they say must be Charly’s birthday, since it is a day that celebrates tricking unwitting people. He has a copy of the English Constitution in his back pocket, which Hank (Barney Martin) takes from Charly. Gimpy wants to humiliate Charly by saying he should operate the dough machine if he’s smart enough to be carrying around such a serious document. It’s a complicated process that Gimpy details. Hank imitates Charly mopping up with exaggerated, derogatory movements. But Charly works the machine correctly, turning the tables on his tormentors.

As Charley and Alice look at slides through a microscope, he keeps asking about her love life. She tells him she would like to avoid personal questions that don’t pertain to his learning process. However, his inquiries are relevant, because he is advancing in his emotional development, also. Charly has a cheese treat for Algernon, saying it’s the mouse’s birthday, since they don’t know when it actually is. Charly’s experience echoes that of Algernon, since both are going through a sort of rebirth. Charly’s diction is now more precise with no slurring caused by uncertainty.

Alice visits Dr. Strauss who is working with mentally challenged children. She has sent the scientist a note about resigning from the project because she feels she will hinder Charly’s progress if he becomes too emotionally invested in her. Dr. Strauss says Alice should understand, being a psychologist, that Charly has transferred his feelings of elation over his accomplishments to Alice, which is normal. Now it is Dr. Strauss who asks about Alice’s personal life, which she again tries to avoid discussing, which makes one wonder if she is really satisfied with her relationship with her fiancé. Alice agrees to stay on until the convention takes place that will present the clinic’s findings.

Alice walks with Charly and talks about Boston’s Freedom Trail (which possibly refers to the ramifications of Charly’s freedom from his previous mental state). She quizzes him as they go along. He seems distracted, although his voice is assured now, answering correctly and quickly when pressed for answers. But facts are no longer enough for him. He wonders about what makes individuals tick. He asks why people don’t laugh at a blind or crippled person, but find it acceptable to make fun of a “moron.” It seems physical disabilities get a dispensation, but there seems to be a special kind of perverse bigotry when it comes to ranking levels of intelligence. He tells Alice that he discovered severance money and a note of dismissal at work. He tells her that his so-called “friends” signed a petition that led to Charly being fired. Now that he was no longer a source of demeaning entertainment, and perceived as a threat to their jobs because he can perform their tasks, they plotted to have him removed. Charly is seeing how those he thought were smarter actually had small minds, circumscribed by their fears and prejudices. He asks is that a natural law, “increased intelligence means lost friends.” Of course, they only appeared to be his friends in his innocent state.

Alice says not to worry about income since he will be paid for his participation at the clinic. She informs him that there will be a demonstration at a symposium on the results of the work of the scientists. He seems pleased that if he works at the clinic he will be seeing her more. In reference to the education process, she quotes George Bernard Shaw who said, “Whenever you learn something, it seems at first that you lose something.” She says that a whole universe is opening up for him, and he is growing out of the old one, which brings about pain. The implication is that it’s sometimes difficult to leave behind old, comfortable ways to move on to new ones, like the pain a mother feels when giving birth to a child that will change her life.

The male scientist, Dr. Richard Nemur (Leon Janney), documents the accelerated pace of Charly’s intellectual growth. Dr. Strauss (playing the empathetic maternal role versus the traditional demanding paternal one of Dr. Nemur) says he is pushing Charly too hard. She says he is emotionally still a child, frightened and insecure, as shown by the psychological interpretation of his drawings, which, she, as the person in charge of his emotional development, says show disturbing signs. She sees Dr. Nemur as sacrificing Charly’s mental health to further his own agenda. Dr. Nemur announces that Alice is no longer of any use, since Charly needs a more demanding teacher. Dr. Strauss says that their goals should be more modest, but Nemur sees no “ceiling” to Charly’s progress and so wants to keep pushing. Nemur does not want to acknowledge the possible harmful fallout of having no “ceiling,” no limitations placed on the unfettered mind.

Charly is stalking Alice, and after her fiancé leaves her place, with only a peck for a kiss, Charly shows up with a gift. He notes that her fiancé only kissed her on the cheek, so she realizes he has been spying on her. He admits to having fallen in love with Alice. He gives her an ornate handheld mirror (to emphasize how beautiful she appears to him? But, is he seeing a true reflection of himself?). She tries to tell him that he’s not seeing the situation clearly, but she, too, is not perceiving her true feelings yet. He, however, does not allow for her to proceed at her own pace. Instead, getting used to no restrictions in acquiring information, Charly now feels justified in breaking the rules of social interaction. He tries to force himself on her. She pushes him off, and then slaps him. But then, Alice demeans Charly by saying how could anyone want him because he is a “stupid moron.” Her outrage is justified, but the response does not reflect her anger because of the current attack. Instead it shows how deep-seated the prejudice is against the mentally challenged as it even exists in a supposedly enlightened individual. This incident illustrates that advanced intelligence does not automatically make someone a better person, since Charly is acting like a sexual predator. Before the procedure, Charly was a sweet, caring person. The movie suggests that there is a fall from grace, as occurs in Genesis, when the bounty provided in a state of innocence is forfeited, and worldly knowledge is then used as a tool to satisfy selfish needs.

Charly now is out of control, seeking boundless thrills on a motorcycle, and riding with multiple women. There are a series of screen inserts showing Charly associated with the hippie lifestyle. The film came out in the 1960’s, when there was rebelliousness by the youth against accepted societal conventions. (The Ravi Shankar music adds to the mood). Earlier, the landlady, Mrs. Apple, (referring to the biblical symbol for self-indulgence?) a religious woman from predominantly Catholic Boston, said that young people were being swayed by the devil. Perhaps the story is equating Charly’s situation with the youth of the times, not in a flattering way. (Of course this reduction is simplistic, since there were justifiable reasons for questioning those in authority for sending youths to die in an indefensible war, repressing minorities, and perpetuating lies).

After his period of wildness, he returns to his apartment and finds Alice there. He says he is selling his motorcycle, the symbol of his renegade state of mind. She asks what did he learn. He says, “I’m back,” which implies that he went through his period of youthful alienation and associated irresponsibility, and has matured, now seeking stability again. He has gone through those growing pains Alice had mentioned earlier, in an accelerated manner, given the experiment in which he was involved. When he asks her what she has learned, she says, “I’m here.” She realizes that she, like him, had not undergone emotional development, and was preventing herself from experiencing loving intimacy. She walks toward him, as the door behind her slowly closes, implying that she, too, was leaving something behind to move forward as she had said earlier he was doing.

They become lovers. As they frolic in an idyllic scene in the woods, the movie has them speak in voice-overs. He wants her to marry him, while she says he is progressing so quickly that she couldn’t keep up, and didn’t want to hold him back, not wanting to place restrictions on his newfound mental freedom. But she is talking intellectually, and he points out that Einstein was married, so that there are emotional needs that must be met. She says Einstein said, “that everything was in motion, that nothing ever stands still.” She sees him moving away from her eventually. Then there is a cut to a merry-go-around, following up with the idea about motion. But, it points back to the beginning, where Charly played as a man-child. He and Alice go down a slide together. He has an advanced intellect, but still wants the joys of childhood. The image, with its downward movement, is also a foreshadowing of what’s to come. He continues to want to learn, but now about love. She says that some say true love is “letting go,” which is what she has had to do, relinquishing the defenses she had erected to protect her from the possible harm that can come if her emotional investment did not pay off. He asks, “what’s enough love,” and she answers, “Always a little more than anyone ever gets.” This response points to the human condition, which always seeks more and more, but is never satisfied. This pursuit is a blessing and a curse.

Four weeks have gone by and the scientists have had no word from Charly or Alice. They are at the site of their presentation. Dr. Strauss wants to show all the stages of Algernon’s development, which Dr. Nemur does not. This discussion provides a hint that there is something ominous about the course of the experiment. Charly and Alice appear, and are in a very happy mood, having fallen in love. At the time of the presentation, however, Charly is anxious. He sees a tape of how he acted at his initial clinical appearance, which was joyful in its ignorance. When asked, he says he now sees things as they are, and will be. His knowledge has brought him no joy. Like Jonathan Swift’s King of Brobdingnag in Gulliver’s Travels, Charly deflates the scientists’ exalted opinions of human advancement. As to modern science, he says it is “Rampant technology. Conscience by computer.” Thus, machines eliminate human feeling. Modern art consists of work by “Dispassionate draftsmen,” which points, again, to precision without emotion. Foreign policy consists of “Brave new weapons,” alluding to the dehumanization in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Today’s youth is “Joyless, guideless,” alienated, without direction. Religion is “Preachment by popularity polls,” not adherence to consistent moral ideals. The current standard of living is having “A TV in every room,” (which is not far off from what has occurred). Charly gives the same answer concerning modern education, which implies an abandonment of high standards. Again referencing Huxley, Charly says the future consists of “Brave new hates, brave new bombs, brave new wars.” He sees future generations coming from “Test-tube conception, laboratory births,” which remove the human element from procreation. He says what’s to come is “a beautifully purposeless process of society suicide,” with the use of “beautifully” providing an ironic comment to the destruction of human culture. Charly has a question, “Charly Gordon?” He turns to Dr. Nemur, who doesn’t answer. Charly says Nemur knows, but hasn’t told him. Charly says Algernon has already provided the him with the answer, which is “Charly Gordon is a fellow who will very shortly be what he used to be.” We now know why Charly was so grim. He has seen his fate.

Charly runs out of the conference, with Alice searching for him. He heads back to the playground. He sees visions of his old self haunting him as he tries to run away from them. He goes through a building with confining walls that look like a maze, as Algernon is superimposed on the image. He now sees the prison he was in that, in his ignorance, he was unaware of, and to where he will be returning. He goes to his apartment and sees all of his books and objects that refer to his current intellectual interests begin to disappear in his mind’s eye. He goes to a bar, and there is a mentally challenged waiter who is laughed at as people pile glasses on his tray, causing him to drop them. Charly identifies with the man, and helps him pick up the glasses, knowing he will again be suffering the waiter’s predicament.

At the clinic, test results show that all of the mice which underwent the treatment are suffering Algernon’s fate. Alice is upset that neither she nor Charly was told of this outcome. Dr. Strauss says only recently did she see the results as conclusive. Dr. Nemur says Charly had no right to reveal the problem at the symposium. Alice accuses him of not wanting to have his moment of glory spoiled, which is another indication that having intelligence does not guarantee ethical behavior. The scientists argue that the regression may be limited to the mice, and Charly is not a laboratory animal. But, hasn’t he been treated as such, since Charly and the mice were experimented on without knowing the possible negative outcomes of the procedure? Charly returns to the clinic. Alice harshly asks if Strauss and Nemur put their failed “specimens” in the freezer and then the incinerator. Charly, after having moved forward into his new world of enlightenment and not wanting to go backward, asks how he can help.

He applies his genius abilities to the problem, working with computer operators to come up with a possible cure. But, during the process, he finds his mental abilities failing. After he finishes his work on his analysis of the regression, he waits for his spoken thoughts transcribed on tape to be programmed into the computer for results. The scientists tell him that his conclusions were correct. Unfortunately, the findings were that there was nothing that could be done to reverse the decline. Charly takes the news with calm resignation, scientifically saying it was a promising theory.

Alice visits Charly at his apartment. She asks him to marry her. His smile registers as a “no.” He does not want her to even stay around to see his reversal, which would be too sad for her. The movie ends as it began, with Charlie in the playground. He is on the seesaw, showing the up and then down journey he has experienced. But, he is smiling and happy, blissful again in his ignorance, unaware of what he has lost.

The next film is The Godfather Part II.