Sweet Charity
Shirley MacLaine gives one of her greatest performances in this spectacular musical based on Neil Simon's Broadway hit. Director Bob Fosse broke new cinematic ground with this freewheeling, visually stunning story of a lovelorn New York dance hall hostess, Charity Hope Valentine, who dreams of old-fashioned romance but gives her heart to one undeserving after another.
MacLaine joins all-star cast members Chita Rivera, Sammy Davis Jr., Ricardo Montalban and Stubby Kaye in belting out thirteen vibrant Cy Coleman-Dorothy Fields' numbers including Big Spender, Rhythm of Live, There's Gotta Be Something Better Than This and the show-stopping If My Friends Could See Me Now. It's an unforgettable production of an all-time classic.
Member Reviews
Meh - jungforu
Sweet Charity is one of those movies that you read the synopsis and think it is filled with a great deal of possibilities. And then you watch it and you are terribly, terribly wrong.
The best parts of the movie is the songs and the dancing. The music is great fun and the dance scenes are amazing. However, the plot is seriously lacking and LONG. This is definately something that could be improved on!A disappointment - Jonze
I rented this movie with the idea that it was going to be a masterpiece. Well, it was a big disappointment. The plot is all over the place and Sweet Charity, the heroine, is very annoying. The only thing that makes this movie watchable are the musical interludes and dances. They will wow you 'til you realize that they are followed by a stupid scene. Favorite song one: Hey Big Spender!Energetic Song And Dance Movie - revsdd
The strengths of this movie are obvious. First are the marvelous song and dance routines that are full of energy and beautifully performed. A few of them went on a little bit too long perhaps but they were very entertaining. The movie also featured very strong performances. The primary star was Shirley MacLaine as the lead character, Charity Hope Valentine. Good male performances were offered by John McMartin as Oscar, who falls madly in love with her but 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 – 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. It took 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'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. Finally, Charity found love – she learned to love herself. It's a different kind of fairy tale ending, as the closing caption tells us that Charity lived "hopefully ever efter" rather than "happily ever after." The movie still left me wishing she and Oscar had made it work, though!
Member Reviews
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Meh - jungforu
Sweet Charity is one of those movies that you read the synopsis and think it is filled with a great deal of possibilities. And then you watch it and you are terribly, terribly wrong.
The best parts of the movie is the songs and the dancing. The music ...A disappointment - Jonze
I rented this movie with the idea that it was going to be a masterpiece. Well, it was a big disappointment. The plot is all over the place and Sweet Charity, the heroine, is very annoying. The only thing that makes this movie watchable are the musical interludes ...Energetic Song And Dance Movie - revsdd
The strengths of this movie are obvious. First are the marvelous song and dance routines that are full of energy and beautifully performed. A few of them went on a little bit too long perhaps but they were very entertaining. The movie also featured very strong ...