Charlie Bubbles

I think it's a classic existentialist movie, very much of the European school. Man can never be truly happy or satisfied, with what he's got or with what he gets even if all his ambitions and dreams come true.I think Albert Finney has done an amazing job. It takes true guts and real skill to make a film like this and 'get life' out of it without resorting to fist fights, car chases and shootouts. I love the small moments, like where he puts the eyelashes on his sons lip to make a 'moustache', or when his wife takes the tea cup and his acting when he reaches for it. Billie Whitelaw looks super-sexy in the film and her performance is beautiful. Her gaze at him when he's tucked in bed said more than a million lines of dialogue could. I wish Mr Finney had directed more films, if his debut as a director was this good, imagine what would have come after a few more films. Aah we'll never know...

Although the apparent unhappiness of Finney as a successfull, and rich writer might seem difficult to accept, think of all the things you thought of as beyond you as a kid. Some of the people reading these words are making a lot of money, live in a beautiful house, have a beautiful, handsome, wife, husband, and dread each new day. Some of it is good old chemical deppression, and some of it is, who the hell knows. That Finney, a working class kid, realized this at such a young age makes me respect him even more than my admiration for him as an actor. The film I feel looks back to the post WW2 Italian existential movies where very little happens. Life is almost slow motion wandering around. Witness Finney's pitiful relationship with his son and his complete lack of interest in his legal an financial affairs with his lawyers in the opening scene. The cast is wonderful. I'm sure the idea of Liza Minelli as his assistant was laughed at. Liza, playing with British pros? Are you kidding? But it works. Billie Whitelaw was born for the movies, and is incidentally Samuel Beckett's favorite actress. She has premiered many of his plays. That Julia Roberts is a superstar, and few people know who Billie Whitelaw is, says something about "something". As a personal aside, one of the great supporting character actors, the late Colin Blakely, who plays Finney's failed sidekick and I, met in front of a London theatre. I told him I came all the way from the US to tell him how wonderful I thought he was. "Did you see my show tonight", he asked. "No sir, I haven't had a chance yet", I replied. He quickly turned away, and walked in a different direction!!!!

"Charlie Bubbles" actually won Billie Whitelaw a Best Supporting Actress award from the New York Film Critics circle back in 1968, but it is mostly remembered today as Liza Minnelli's film debut. She's in it for about a third of the running time, and it's an assured comic performance, quite different from her later screen personas. Albert Finney's direction and performance are fresh and intriguing, and Whitelaw deserved her accolade--she walks off with the last third of the film. You'll either love or hate the ending.

517 Watford Way, London, England, UK....I was working nights on the pumps in 1967 when this was made, great free food. R.I.P. Albert Finney

I understand that there was a real problem getting this film a theatrical release and that it is more a mid-sixties film than a late 60s one, not being released in the UK until 1969. I can understand the reluctance of distributers. With the best will in the world and considering that this may have been a heart felt effort to produce a European style thought provoking drama, it is hard to see this as anything other than a misguided and pretentious, vanity project. It starts disastrously with a reunion with a working class chum (who over does it enormously) with whom because he is now rich and famous somehow cannot relate. Plus the unforgivable homoerotic messy food prank in the posh restaurant. Things go from bad to worse, I don't know whether Shelagh Delaney's script was scrapped or that this drivel really was hers, either way the only saving grace are those fantastic Lancashire city and landscape shots. The views of what I assume to be the Manchester ship canal an added bonus, as for the rest, no thanks. Oh and the miscasting of Liza Minnelli is inexplicable, she is dreadful.