Sweet Charity was born when Broadway star Gwen Verdon and husband Fosse decided to create a stage musical based on Federico Fellini's Italian film classic Le Notti di Cabiria (1957) as a vehicle for her. The role of a streetwalker who tries to escape the world's oldest profession through marriage only to face rejection when her new beau decides he can't live with her past seemed perfect for Verdon. Although some critics would accuse them of sanitizing the original, they decided to transform the leading character, the ever-hopeful Charity, from a streetwalker into a dance-hall hostess. Fosse argued that setting the show in New York City made the change necessary; the hookers there were too hard-edged for the story. The musical opened in 1966 with great songs by Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields, including "Hey, Big Spender" and "If My Friends Could See Me Now," and became a big hit.
A few years later, Lew Wasserman, head of Universal Pictures, was looking to produce a film musical to capitalize on the success of such films as My Fair Lady (1964) and The Sound of Music (1965). MacLaine suggested a film version of Sweet Charity and even fought to have Fosse hired to make his film directing debut with the picture (he had choreographed in Hollywood since the '50s on both original musicals and adaptations of his stage hits). In a way, she was paying back past favors. Fosse had cast her first as a member of the chorus and then as understudy to one of the leads in The Pajama Game. MacLaine was on the verge of quitting that hit to understudy Verdon in Can-Can, with hopes that she would get to play the role, when Carol Haney, the actress/dancer she understudied in Pajama Game, sprained her ankle. MacLaine went on in her place the night a talent scout was attending, and the rest is Hollywood history.
Verdon had hoped to play Charity in the screen version, but realized that MacLaine's name was well known to moviegoers and would mean more at the box office. It also seemed a fair exchange, since she had modeled her characterization on MacLaine's image as a kooky gamin. She even signed on as an assistant choreographer, helping teach MacLaine the dances and leading the camera through some of the more intricate routines.
Only one star from the original Broadway production made it into the film. John McMartin, who would go on to appear in such Broadway hits as Follies and Into the Woods, played the young accountant who almost marries MacLaine. Chita Rivera and Paula Kelly, cast as Charity's dance hall friends, had appeared in the show in London (with Rivera in the lead). To this mix they added screen veteran Ricardo Montalban as a movie star who picks up Charity after a spat with his girlfriend, Stubby Kaye as the dance-hall manager and, in a cameo, Sammy Davis, Jr. as the leader of a religious revival. In the dance chorus would be future Broadway stars Ben Vereen and Lee Roy Reams, mime Lorene Yarnell (later of Shields and Yarnell), Laugh-In star Chelsea Brown and Toni Basil, later the singer of the top-20 hit "Mickey."
Fosse wanted the film version to maintain the gritty texture of both the stage musical and the original Italian film. In that area, he quarreled with producer Ross Hunter, who had a long career of creating lavish, glamorous and, most importantly, moneymaking films for Universal. When they failed to come to terms, Wasserman stood behind the new director and replaced Hunter with another of the studio's stalwart producers, Robert Alan Arthur. He also supported Fosse's decision to re-shoot an ending the director thought too corny (Charity reconciles with the man who dumped her at the altar) and replace it with one in which Charity goes off to seek happiness on her own terms.
But for all the good work and solid professionalism that went into Sweet Charity, it was caught in the storm of changing times. The same year she danced in the film's chorus, Toni Basil played a small role in Easy Rider, a film that would change the face of filmmaking with its appeal to a younger, alienated audience. To them, the old-fashioned Hollywood musical was a dinosaur, and Sweet Charity became one of several big-budget musical flops that put the genre to rest -- at least for a while. With the recent success of Chicago (2002), another adaptation of a Bob Fosse-Gwen Verdon stage hit, Sweet Charity deserves a second look as the collaboration of one of the world's greatest choreographers and one of its most energetic and appealing stars.
Producer: Robert Alan Arthur
Director: Bob Fosse
Screenplay: Peter Stone
Based on the musical by Neil Simon, Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields, adapted from the screenplay " Le Notti di Cabiria " by Federico Fellini, Tullio Pinelli and Ennio Flaiano Cinematography: Robert Surtees
Art Direction: Alexander Golitzen, George C. Webb
Music: Cy Coleman, Joseph Gershenson
Cast: Shirley MacLaine (Charity Hope Valentine), Sammy Davis, Jr. (Big Daddy), Ricardo Montalban (Vittorio Vitale), John McMartin (Oscar Lindquist), Chita Rivera (Nickie), Paula Kelly (Helene), Stubby Kaye (Herman), Suzanne Charney, Chelsea Brown, Lee Roy Reams, Ben Vereen, Lorene Yarnell (Frug Dancers), Toni Basil (Convert), Bud Cort, Kristoffer Tabori (Hippies).
C-154m. Letterboxed. Closed captioning.
by Frank Miller
