Sweet Charity (1969)

Excellent, a Must See

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Lots of talent behind and in front of the camera but it doesn't come across watching this uninvolving musical. Shirley gives her all but the director let her down. If I see another zoom, dissolve or freeze frame I 'll scream! During the Big Spender number, dancers were almost stationary throughout. Seemed like they were singing this wonderful number to an empty club. Where's the atmosphere? Thankfully, director Fosse went on to greater things, including Cabaret. Couldn't complete re-watching this movie. Rating based on seeing it at its release and on DVD a few years back.

Sweet Charity from a personal point of view wasn't a great film as such. The pace does ramble at times, John McMartin has moments where he is amusing but on the most part he's rather bland and the non-musical scenes are dull and gaudy. However it is a good film, a promising start in film for Bob Fosse and it didn't deserve to bomb the way it did. Some of the non-musical scenes do show signs of directorial inexperience, but in the musical numbers his direction does come to life and even very early on we see signs of his distinctive style. Even better is his choreography, it is full of energy and fun and was quite daring for its time, at its absolute best in There's Got to be Something Better Than This. The songs are justifiably famous, Hey Big Spender and Rhythm of Life are the biggest hits and are still iconic. If They Could See Me Now is also very well done. The production values are very colourful and vibrant too. The writing on the most part is sharp and sophisticated, if not quite as much as the stage show, while the somewhat bittersweet ending is very moving. The performances are fine. Shirley MacLaine gives a charming and energetic lead performance, allowing us to root for her character Charity later on by bringing some much needed subtlety in the latter parts of the film. Riccardo Montalban is very funny even when chewing the scenery, Paula Kelly and underseen Chita Rivera are electrifying and Sammy Davis Jnr absolutely mesmorises in the Rhythm of Life number. All in all, a good film that was undeserving of its bomb status but Bob Fosse did go on to better things. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Neither this movie nor the two endings are that good in my book, I never saw the Fellini movie that "Sweet Charity" is based on and I love a sad, "realistic" ending as much as the next person. But with the way this movie is written, it doesn't make sense to me for Oscar to leave Charity hanging at the altar.Maybe if he found out what she does for a living after he asked her to marry him it would make more sense. Then he might feel some obligation to go through with the marriage even though he was having serious second thoughts, and that could lead to him backing out of it at the last minute. But the way this movie is written, he not only found out about her life before asking her to marry him, he found out before he told her he loved her. There were no serious ties between them, he had all the time in the world to keep dating her and mulling it over (if he wanted to use that time), yet he still came to the conclusion that nothing else mattered and they had to be together.To me that isn't the thought process of a man who is going go flip-flop on his decision. And if he does flip, what's to stop him from flopping right back hours later and deciding he was a fool for leaving Charity ... which brings us back to the alternate end.Like I said, neither end is satisfying to me. But at least the alternate one makes more sense. In the original one even Oscar can't explain why he's leaving her.

The strengths of this movie are obvious to anyone who watches it. First are the marvelous song and dance routines that are full of energy and beautifully performed. My only criticism is that a few of them went on a little bit too long – which made the movie itself a bit too long - but for the most part they were very entertaining. The movie also featured very strong performances. The primary star, of course, was Shirley MacLaine as the lead character, Charity Hope Valentine – a "dance club hostess" (actually, I was not entirely clear if her duties might have included prostitution; it was never explicitly stated, although it was suggested). Good male performances (in lesser roles) were offered by John McMartin as Oscar, who falls madly in love with her but in the end can't marry her, and Ricardo Montalban as Vittorio, an Italian movie star she meets by accident and is smitten with, although there is obviously no future for her in the relationship. In an even lesser, but quite funny, turn was Sammy Davis, Jr. as "Big Daddy" – the leader of some sort of hippy-style religious group.The story itself left me with mixed emotions. Adapted from a stageplay, I personally thought it still felt too much like stageplay – to me, the medium of the big screen wasn't used well enough. The story began by telling us in an opening caption that Charity is a girl who desperately wants to be loved. It proceeds through some of her adventures as she seeks love. To be honest, it took me a while to get into this, and it wasn't until the appearance of Montalban's Vittorio that I really started to get interested in the story. Once the story grabbed me, though, I found myself rooting for Charity. She was a truly sweet character who deserved love. I had an interesting reaction to her search for love. I'm usually put off by the needlessly romanticized endings Hollywood often offers us in such movies. Here, though, I really wanted that happy ending for Charity, and I felt a little deflated when Oscar dumped her. I got the point of the ending. Finally, Charity found love – she learned to love herself; she didn't need a man. The message fit the tenor of the times (1969) in which the movie was made. The woman who once needed a man to feel good about herself finally becomes self-sufficient. Yes – I get it. It's a different kind of fairy tale ending, as the closing caption tells us that Charity lived "hopefully ever after" rather than happily ever after. I was still rooting for her and Oscar, though! All things considered, I'd give this a 7/10 for pure entertainment value.