Au revoir Charlie

I saw, "Goodbye, Charlie" when I was about 20. That's a hard age to please. "Been there, done it, seen it; yet another piece of trite," was my attitude.

Debbie Reynolds was beige-haired, Tony Curtis, getting on. Overly-mounted pastel-colored movies bored me - hitless, and this was another end-of-an-era white-bread piece of rubbish. Doris Day and Sandra Dee were what the Sixties had degenerated into: broad, trite and forced.

Besides, there were well-known rumors about Debbie's pinch-hitting proclivities. The premise of "Goodbye Charlie" was awkward and perverse. I suspected that Hollywood was presenting it as an inside joke.

So 35 years later, I tried it again on TMC. ...And I LOVED it. Well, much of it. I loved gorgeous Ellen Burstyn and Joanna Barnes - indeed, the scene at The Bistro Restaurant with these latter two and Reynolds had me p******g myself, if you'll forgive the vulgarity. Ms. Barnes can do no wrong as a character playing straight when someone is putting the screws to her. Her slant-eyed, cool demeanor is pure joy.

The fact that Vincent Minnelli directed it and that George Axelrod wrote the script was an important revelation.

What's more, I thought that the ladies' dresses were magnificent. How well they dressed, back then!

And when Walter Matthau said, "If I weren't Hungarian, I'd be speechless!" is a classic retort. I loved his character, also - and he's a man who's garnered so much praise over the years that I usually just roll my eyes when I see him. He looked smart as paint in his black tie and toupee - and the way he worked the room when he's sprung from jail was utterly delicious.

In the final quarter hour, when I saw where the film was headed, I switched stations, unwilling to have my favorable impressions destroyed.

Axlerod is a master, and I'm sorry to have given him short shrift for so many years. Those who want to see a quintessential Sixties movie, along with some rib-tickling one-liners, want to go with this one.

I remember this movie as a child when there were really funny and good movies shown on TV Sunday mornings. This was one of the "sixties" movies that I enjoyed watching even as a kid...I could get the jokes and the cast was of people I recognized and liked. I didn't get a chance to see this one until the early "seventies" for the first time, but I could enjoy some of the stars I grew to love in other movies. I would give it a solid "8" out of "10". I am very hard on movies that are comedies and have really good comedic actors. See it for yourself. I would also recommend "SWITCH (1991)" with Ellen Barkin and Jimmy Smits.

This is one of those movies that is fun to watch, the premise is of course impossible, but enjoyable none the less. If you liked THE LAST TIME I SAW ARCHIE or MERRILY WE LIVE you will be very pleased that you took the time to check out this gem. Tony Curtis and Debby Reynolds well, they live up to their comedic potential in this one.

The first five minutes or so of "Goodbye, Charlie" are simply sublime. But you can turn it off after the "Directed by Vincente Minnelli" credit comes on. But let's back up.

20th Century Fox logo on and off. Nice Cinemascope shot of a yacht off the Malibu coast at night, with jazzy-rock music in the far distance and a distant swingin' party on board. Three star credits come on and off: "Tony Curtis," "Debbie Reynolds," "Pat Boone." Onto the boat, where a raucous Hollywood party is in full swing. Director Minnelli captures all the phoniness and glamour of the party. A superfast psueudo-rock number -- "Seven at Once" -- is blaring on the "Hi-Fi" as heavy-bosomed Playmate of the Year Donna Michelle shakes her ample breasts in a low cut gold dress (in 1964, this was "sexy.") Hot young folks are dancing while stuffy old agent Martin Gabel looks on with peptic-ulcer angst. Some handsome matrons (Ellen Macrae, soon Burstyn, Joanna Barnes) try to swing with the Playmate, but to no avail. Walter Matthau (in gray wig and blazer) plays poker and puffs on a big stogie.

Old-fashioned director Vincente Minnelli tries some new-fashioned "hand-held camera" work (see: that year's earlier "A Hard Day's Night") to capture the ensuing action: Matthau's wife Laura Devon (the second sexiest woman after Playmate Donna Michelle) sneaks off for some hot below decks lovemaking with the barely seen stud screenwriter, "Charlie." Matthau snoops around in the kitchen of the yacht, and gets a gun when the maid isn't looking(this part of the sequence is like the opening murder sequence in the same December's "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte" ) Matthau then bursts in on his wife and Charlie, starts shooting.

Charlie jumps out a porthole into the ocean, but Walter's bullets kill him before he hits the drink.

The party guests rush to the side of the boat and look down into the ocean where Charlie fell. Credits fly out of the water as a raucous male-female chorus sings the swinging, fun title song "Goodbye, Charlie! Hate to see you go..." What follows is a regulation 1964 animation sequence of deep sea creatures in the deep blue sea (where Charlie has gone to rest, soon to return as Debbie Reynolds) and that infectious title tune about a lothario getting his just desserts. (This song got a lot of radio play in '64/'65.) Vincente Minnelli was a pro, and this opening sequence is a lot of fun as the old (studio production values in costumes and yacht interior) fights with the new (hand-held camera, Playmate of the Year boobs) in a raucous sing-a-long opening that bids farewell to Hollywood's studio era and plants the genre as dead as Charlie with the counterculture years ahead.

"Goodbye, Charlie!" indeed...hate to see you go.

GOODBYE CHARLIE was a slightly smarmy but very funny comedy from the 60's that I grew up with. This was the story of a womanizing cad named Charlie Sorel, who one night is partying on a yacht and romances a married woman. He is caught by her husband who shoots Charlie, who falls overboard into the ocean. Charlie's body is not immediately located but a memorial service is held, attended by his best friend George (Tony Curtis) and dozens of women Charlie romanced over the years. A couple of days later a woman (Debbie Reynolds) is found naked on the beach outside of Charlie's apartment, where George is sorting out Charlie's things. We soon learn that this woman is a female reincarnation of Charlie Sorel, apparently God's ironic way of punishing Charlie for the dreadful way he treated women all his life. Charlie initially freaks out at the idea of being a woman but soon shows he hasn't learned a thing and reverts to the old Charlie even though he is a woman now. I was just a kid when this film first hit theaters but I still thought it was pretty funny. Reynolds and Curtis are energetic in the lead roles and are well-supported by Walter Matthau as the guy who shot Charlie, Pat Boone as a schnook who found and falls in love with the reincarnated Charlie and Joanna Barnes and Ellen MacRae as two of the women in old Charlie's life. BTW, Ellen MacRae later changed her name to Ellen Burstyn. It's no cinematic masterpiece, but it will make you laugh. Remade many years later as SWITCH.