Sweet Charity (1969)

Sweet Charity is a 1969 musical directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse. It was Fosse’s first feature film. The stage version of Sweet Charity was based on Fellini’s 1957 film Nights of Cabiria, the story of a prostitute’s search for happiness and love.

The 60s was a fascinating period for movie musicals with massive hits like The Sound of Music and huge box-office turkeys like Doctor Dolittle, Hello Dolly, Star and Darling Lili. Sweet Charity turned out to be one of the biggest flops of all.

Charity Hope Valentine (Shirley MacLaine) is a dance hall hostess. She dreams of falling in love. She does fall in love. Often. It never works out.

At the beginning of the movie she’s involved with a sleazebag named Charlie. He’s such an obvious louse that you immediately start to wonder about Charity’s judgment.

Then there’s a handsome charming Italian movie star played by Ricardo Montalban. She makes it as far as his bedroom, but not as far as his bed.

Then she meets Mr Right. He’s Oscar (John McMartin) and he’s as wholesome as freshly baked bread. Of course she can’t tell him she’s a taxi dancer. And what if he discovers that she’s not a virgin!

Lots of emotional angst follows.

It’s not hard to see why this movie flopped. There are so many things wrong with it.

The first problem is that at two-and-a-half hours it’s an hour too long. It is so slow.

Some of the songs are good but most are awful.

It’s an unstructured mess.

The biggest problems stem from what they did to the source material. In Fellini’s movie the heroine is a prostitute. That was changed for both the stage and screen versions of Sweet Charity. Had Charity been portrayed as a hooker the movie would have received an X rating which would have doomed it.

The trouble is that if she’s not a hooker the entire story makes no sense at all. All of Charity’s indulgence in self-pity and shame makes no sense. Oscar’s behaviour stretches credibility beyond breaking point.

And we’re seriously expected to believe that Oscar, a sophisticated New Yorker, is shocked and horrified by the thought that Charity might not be a virgin.

It all comes across as silly and we lose patience with both Charity and Oscar.

And they made her a dance hall hostess? A taxi dancer? In New York City in 1969? A profession that hadn’t been heard of for twenty years.

The only way this bowdlerised version of the story could have worked was as a period piece. In a 1920s, 30s or 40s setting it might have made sense. In a 1969 setting it’s an absurdity.

Some of the dance routines are well done. Fosse’s approach to choreography is genuinely fresh and exciting. But that’s maybe three musical routines in a long long long movie.

The Rhythm of Life number comes across as a desperate attempt to climb aboard the Summer of Love bandwagon. It doesn’t fit in the movie at all.

Visually it’s all over the place. The scenes in the Pompeii Club are excellent - they have a very euro decadent vibe.

I also have to say that I just didn’t warm to Charity as a character.

Sweet Charity just didn’t grab me at all. I can’t in all honesty recommend this one.