MartinHafer
When the film begins, a notorious womanizer, Charlie, is caught with another man's wife and is shot to death. Soon there's a funeral and his friend, George (Tony Curtis) arrives to do the eulogy. However, almost no one shows up...because Charlie spent his life using people, not paying debts and bedding any woman who fell for his spiel. Good riddance seems to be the mood of the day.Soon there's a knock on the door to Charlie's home and since George is the executor, he answers. A young man (Pat Boone) is there with a naked woman in a blanket. He isn't sure who she is but she gave this address but was otherwise delirious. When she later awakens, it becomes obvious that this IS Charlie--reincarnated as a woman (Debbie Reynolds). At first, it's pretty obvious that Charlie had nothing but contempt for women and hates his new body. However, soon an interesting change comes over him. Perhaps he can use and take advantage of people BETTER as a woman and Charlie begins using her wiles to get ahead in life. She shamelessly flirts and blackmails some of the rich married women Charlie used to sleep with in his male days. Why George hangs out with Charlie throughout much of the film is odd, as George doesn't seem like a total jerk. Charlie, on the other hand, is gosh-darn awful both as a man and as a woman.So what you have is a racy 60s sex comedy...minus the sex. The idea is pretty cute, original and I generally enjoyed the movie. However, I did think the film went on a bit too long and the picture lost a bit of its momentum as a result. For the first half, I'd give this one a 7 or 8...for the final half, a 4 or 5.By the way, Walter Matthau's accent was just awful and I assume he must have been really embarrassed by this performance.
Cristi_Ciopron
I liked Debbie Reynolds (who nonetheless looked as if she could be as bland as the movie's main quirk, a trope met from Topper and Capra, to movies with Pitt or Bridges, always lacking eeriness; but here, she wasn't, she gives some kind of a Method acting) playing a man being a woman, she made a good role, I liked Curtis' talk with Carmel about felonies, and the 'Psycho' spoof, with the cellar and the inspector in the street.The script showcases a guy's strong wish to know that his deceased friend has been redeemed, saved. From exhaustion, alcohol and hunger, he sleeps, and in his dream his demised pal shows up as a girl (this way, George mourns him, by expressing his asexual love for his friend), and also gets a 2nd chance, to behave better …. It has all been a dream. And in his dream, the writer saw his friend redeemed. Charlie has been dead all along, since the opening scene. And instead of Charlie returning from his ocean rest, a dog will guard George's newfound love. Let us distinguish idea, quirk, look, style; the idea is of the dream and redemption, with mourning and longing, the quirk is the mentioned trope, the look is astonishing, the style is a '60s salad.I enjoyed the '60s glamor. There are parties with nice statuesque, shapely women. Joanna Barnes, Laura Devon, Myrna Hansen are so good-looking, and so is the movie itself, which I expected from so reputed a director, but in fact this is a modest _glam comedy (a few scenes were good, once the spoof begins), not very inspired or funny, averagely amusing certainly, not always in the best taste.I have read somewhere an obviously wrong plot summary: 1st, all could have been George's dream, from drunkenness and hunger, and in fact it has all been a dream, since the blonde who shows up at the denouement, and her dog, have previous lives, a past, they don't just show up mysteriously, claiming to be another beings; and 2nd, Charlie isn't punished again, but released, redeemed, for her unwillingness to take advantage of the inexperienced guy who proposed her, Charlie behaved better as a woman, ceased manipulating others. The idea being that, in George's dream, Charlie did 'change his ways', became better. But the director wished to save the twist for the denouement, instead of allowing it to permeate the plot, to shine from inside the plot.The screwball and the satire were mediocre, the spoof worked. It didn't seem to me like a good movie (though it has exciting or very satisfying scenes), because of the lousy script (which was however a hit, there's an American infatuation with this kind of bland fantasy, about the dead being given more time on Earth) and its _soullessness, its glamorizing of shallow beings (not entirely, but almost devoid of humane reactions), though the idea of the script certainly has charm (which, as a matter of fact, in retrospect subverts the _soullessness, as it has all been George's longing, his search for a redemptive solution), so I rank it as a charming movie, as a '60s salad of glamor. There's a Protestant tale of retribution, _expectably devoid of dramatic force, and a _glam comedy. One's not supposed to be awed by the director or the fame. I mostly dislike the quirk of the script, the avatars of a dead person, the idea of justice, because of its defining blandness, seen in countless other movies, it has a Protestant flavor, but it's something that apparently the American audiences enjoy. Otherwise, the comedy, made in a _glam style, seems a bit heartless, a bit soulless (though the twist might change this, as it has been George's way of dreaming a generous resolution, of seeing his friend redeemed, saved, changed albeit posthumously), and its satire and social world, uninspiring.
IRVIN8
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.
