GOODBYE CHARLIE was a slightly smarmy but very funny comedy from the 60's that I grew up with. This was the story of a womanizing cad named Charlie Sorel, who one night is partying on a yacht and romances a married woman. He is caught by her husband who shoots Charlie, who falls overboard into the ocean. Charlie's body is not immediately located but a memorial service is held, attended by his best friend George (Tony Curtis) and dozens of women Charlie romanced over the years. A couple of days later a woman (Debbie Reynolds) is found naked on the beach outside of Charlie's apartment, where George is sorting out Charlie's things. We soon learn that this woman is a female reincarnation of Charlie Sorel, apparently God's ironic way of punishing Charlie for the dreadful way he treated women all his life. Charlie initially freaks out at the idea of being a woman but soon shows he hasn't learned a thing and reverts to the old Charlie even though he is a woman now. I was just a kid when this film first hit theaters but I still thought it was pretty funny. Reynolds and Curtis are energetic in the lead roles and are well-supported by Walter Matthau as the guy who shot Charlie, Pat Boone as a schnook who found and falls in love with the reincarnated Charlie and Joanna Barnes and Ellen MacRae as two of the women in old Charlie's life. BTW, Ellen MacRae later changed her name to Ellen Burstyn. It's no cinematic masterpiece, but it will make you laugh. Remade many years later as SWITCH.

Having only recently seen this movie (four plus decades after it was made) for the first time, it definitely is a time capsule of an era gone by ... when Curtis ranked supreme as a leading man and Reynolds still drew audiences based on her fifties's films (Singing in the Rain, Hit the Deck), and America had a living president named Kennedy. That era is long gone now ... Curtis retired to Vegas and bloated, and Reynolds is known now-a-days more for being Carrie Fisher's "real" mom and/or Grace Adler's "fictional" mom. I go on about this because although this film is watchable, and really comes to life when Matthau hilariously overplays a horny movie producer, its value to me derives more from what it captures on celluloid ... an era of film-making w/ Camelot-like production values (ie.- Come September, That Touch of Pink) that ended with the passing of Kennedy.

Boy oh boy...do the opinions differ about this one! As a diehard Minnelli fan I went to see this one when it was first released. Even then I forgave its jerry-built comic premise and tried to enjoy it as I had some of Vincente's earlier assignments at M-G-M. But it really was quite labored and, for its day, a bit on the smutty side. Hard to believe that the devilishly clever George Axelrod had a hand in this script.Minnelli, as usual, insisted upon giving it the maximum possible visual gloss. An acquaintance of mine who worked on the art direction/production design team assigned by 20th-Century Fox to this project revealed that when Minnelli first came to the studio to review some planned sets and storyboards, he threw them out and insisted that everyone give it another, better try. The final result, along with Helen Rose's chic women's wardrobe (a Minnelli ally from M-G-M, and, probably, brought to Twentieth with Debbie's enthusiastic approval), and Milton Krasner's slick CinemaScope/DeLuxe Color cinematography, is a good example of studio product that was becoming increasingly out-of-touch with the emerging tastes of audiences looking for somewhat less glossy entertainments. Andre Previn's title song, with lyrics by his then-wife, Dory Langdon, aptly underscored the somewhat off-color proceedings. The VHS video is, no doubt, "formatted," so, once again, I warn all comers: "Don't bother!"

Read the cast list. These people can act and they know how to do comedy. Read Maltin's review and send him a raspberry. If he liked the play better, he should be a theater critic and not review films. I hate stuff like that. This is a funny movie, I have never seen the stage play and never hope to do so, so the fact that Maltin liked some stage version thirty years ago better is totally irrelevant to my possible enjoyment of a film, or yours. This is a good movie, and if you like the stars you will probably enjoy it. I gave it a nine because I couldn't give it an 8.5.