Education, After a Fashion

Films: Charly
Format: DVD from NetFlix on The New Portable.

Charly seemed very familiar to me. I realized at some point while watching that I’d seen part of this before. I’m pretty certain I hadn’t seen the whole thing, but there are a couple of moments that were shockingly familiar to me. If I have seen the whole thing previously, it was so long ago that this was not unlike a first viewing of the film. There are a lot of odd things about Charly and its Oscar journey. Cliff Robertson won this Oscar in what would be his only nomination and the only one for the film. It’s also an odd nomination in the sense that this is at least nominally a science fiction story, and Oscar tends not to like that genre for acting nominations.

Charly Gordon (Cliff Robertson) is an intellectually disabled man who wants to be smarter. While it’s never overtly stated in the film, it is implied that Charly’s deficiencies stem from a childhood illness that involved a very high fever. However, he is high enough functioning that he lives in his own room at something like a boarding house and has a job at a local industrial bakery. He also attends night classes with Ms. Alice Kinnian (Claire Bloom), where he works hard but struggles even with basics like writing his own name.

Daddy Issues

Film: Father Goose
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on laptop.

I’ve often made the comment about films that don’t know what they want to be on this blog. Rarely have I encountered a film with as severe multiple personality disorder as Father Goose. Is it a war film? Yes. Is it a romance? Yes. Is it a screwball comedy? Yes. Oh, it’s all these things and more wrapped up in a packaged just under two hours in length.

Walter Eckland (Cary Grant) is a former history professor turned South Pacific beachcomber. As the Japanese begin island hopping across the ocean and the British Navy prepares to retreat to Australia, Eckland shows up at the British base to confiscate supplies. Here he is coerced by his friend Commander Frank Houghton (Trevor Howard) into becoming a coast watcher. He’s more than coerced—Houghton specifically damages Eckland’s boat, preventing him from leaving. He also hides Eckland’s whiskey around the island, promising a bottle for each confirmed sighting of Japanese planes or ships.

Matthew 6:28

Film: Lilies of the Field
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

Apparently it’s nun week here at 1001plus. I’m not sure why this is, but I should probably track down The Nun’s Story while this particular iron is hot. I knew nothing about Lilies of the Field when it showed up from NetFlix, so imagine my surprise when I popped it into the spinner and it proved to be another film with a significant nun component. It also has a significant Sidney Poitier component, and that’s rarely a bad thing. Rather than being put out by the small convent, I decided to instead be happy that it wasn’t merely a Sidney Poitier film, but one for which he won an Oscar.

So let’s talk high concept for a moment here. At its heart, Lilies of the Field is a simple story. An itinerant handyman named Homer Smith (Sidney Poitier) finds himself on the property of a small group of nuns. He offers to fix a fence he sees four of the sisters struggling with but is instead sent to fix the roof. Expecting to be paid, he’s instead given a meager dinner at the behest of Mother Maria (Lilia Skala). The next day, it’s more of the same. Homer eventually figures out that Maria wants him to build them a chapel. She also wants him to do virtually everything else for the nuns, including providing English lessons.