Goodbye Charlie

Cute but Intelligent Comedy
Vincente Minnelli directed this lively and intelligent version of George Axelrod's play about a gangster who dies and returns as a very lovely female: Debbie Reynolds. She has to convince Tony Curtis that she or he is really back! This is one of those great color CinemaScope situation comedies that were so popular back in the good old days of the 60s. You have to accept the situation to enjoy the plot and appreciate the humor. The cast also includes Pat Boone, Walter Matthau, Martin Gabel and Ellen (McRae) Burstyn. This is a real product of that feel-good time during the 60s. I always enjoyed this film.

Great film, BOTCHED DVD transfer!
I have eagerly been awaiting a proper digital release of "Goodbye Charlie" since the advent of the DVD format. Unfortunately, this Fox "Cinema Archives" DVD is anything but a proper release of this colorful, 1964 CinemaScope classic.

My current home video of this film is an "unofficial" DVD I had imported from Asia. The quality is less than desirable, but I bought it several years ago as a placeholder until Fox released the film. Remarkably, my import of this film is of better quality than this Fox Cinema Archive release. The major problem? Fox has cropped the picture from the original 2.35:1 to 1.33:1. In layman's terms, this simply means that Fox has released the film with huge sections (nearly 40%) of the picture missing. The result is a poorly framed picture that has been mutilated to a "full screen" picture.

This is a great little 60's comedy, but Fox's total disregard for its back catalog of classics has resulted in a film that is practically unwatchable...

An truly twisted '60s sex comedy
Woah! Call the Gender Studies class in to explain this one to me... Debbie Reynolds stars as the feminine reincarnation of a no-good philandering wolf named Charlie; Tony Curtis is the best (and perhaps only) friend who was dragooned into reading the eulogy at Charlie's funeral. Of course, when Debbie shows up on the beach naked and with amnesia, Curtis at first gets drawn into the mystery, and then falls in love with... his old best friend(!) Where to begin? This has Reynolds ogling other girls in the dressing room, Walter Matthau (who had shot Charlie at the beginning of the film) hitting on Reynolds, Charlie golddigging with a hapless rich boy (played by Pat Boone) and finally, the romantic scenes between Curtis and Reynolds... the levels of homoeroticism in this film are so multifarious and bizarre, that it's truly, astoundingly mind-boggling. I really wish I could know more about the genesis of this project... How this project got green-lighted in the first place is a source of...

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