Charity Hope Valentine (Shirley MacLaine) is a naïve (really, really naïve…like pathologically…) dance hall girl who is seeking love. Her co-workers Helene and Nickie (Paula Kelly, Chita Rivera) are more realistic, dreaming only of rising a step on the economic ladder. Charity is robbed by a supposed boyfriend, and then forced to spend the night in a closet when the famous man who picks her up (Ricardo Montalban) is unexpectedly visited by his girlfriend. Things look up for Charity when she is stuck in an elevator with Oscar (John McMartin). It seems maybe this time she’s found true love.
The stage show Sweet Charity was based on Federico Fellini’s movie, Nights of Cabiria, with Charity’s job purified from prostitute to dance hall girl. Ah, gotta love American Puritanism—for the story to make any sense, she needs to be far more disreputable than a “dance hall girl.” It’s a second tier stage musical slipping toward third tier, with several memorable songs (Big Spender, If My Friends Could See Me Now, There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This) and quite a bit of filler. It plays far too safe. It’s fine for a night at the theater, but it was never going to make a great film.
What it needed was filmmakers who knew how to cut things to the bone. But neither first-time director Bob Fosse nor screen writer Peter Stone had that skill, and the slight but still meandering plot goes on and on. Two and a half hours is an hour too long. Its intermission (yeah, it has one) should have been its ending. Every non-musical scene is too long, and even some of the musical ones could use a trim.
MacLaine is also a problem. She’s a good dancer and a good singer, but the lead in a dragging musical needs to be great at one of those. Great dancers do not need dance doubles (she has one), and are put into the major dance numbers (she isn’t). And great singers can elevate mediocre songs; good ones just display their mediocre nature. If everything else had been better, MacLaine would have been fine, but the movie needed a savior, and she wasn’t it.
Strangely, while Fosse lacked a skill that this movie needed (at this point in his film career), he’s also the reason to the see it. Fosse was an innovative choreographer, and if that field can have an auteur, he’s it. His dances were often brilliant, and always interesting. Sweet Charity is filled with his signature ensemble weirdness and wonder (although as mentioned, almost always with the title character sitting on the sidelines). Undulating or quick-snapping dancers are captivating in the routines for Big Spender, Rich Man’s Frug, and The Rhythm of Life, all hipper than the real ‘60s ever were. If you are a Fosse fan, you’ll want to check out Sweet Charity, though perhaps after Cabaret and All That Jazz. And perhaps at home with a remote control to fast forward though vast swashes. If you aren’t a Fosse fan, skip it.