Sweet Charity Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

Sweet Charity Blu-ray Movie Review

See her now.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 20, 2019

Some cineastes might posit an all time classic like Citizen Kane , The Seventh Seal, Rashomon or Battleship Potemkin as the, or at least a, film that changed their lives, but for this particular reviewer, Sweet Charity stands as one of the first truly gobsmacking viewing experiences I had as a child. From the first brass inflected punches of “Big Spender” in the film’s overture, to an almost magically immersive Swingle Singer-esque vocal on a beautiful Esus4 as the actual credits started (one of the first times I remember being consciously aware of movie sound surrounding me), I was almost magically transported, and that feeling continued throughout a film which offered some of the most dazzling dance moves of its (or, frankly, any) day, something that helped to elevate a rather touching if also kind of tawdry story of a dance hall hostess with the improbable name of Charity Hope Valentine (Shirley MacLaine) who was eternally on the hunt for true love. Many fans will know that Sweet Charity was of course adapted from one of those all time classics that might be cited by higher minded film fans as having changed their lives, namely Fellini’s immortal Nights of Cabiria, which director and choreographer Bob Fosse fashioned into a sizable Broadway hit designed expressly for his wife Gwen Verdon. Verdon had never quite set the film world on fire, despite a rather appealing turn in the film version of another Broadway outing which had starred her, Damn Yankees, and while the decision to cast MacLaine certainly didn’t rise to the near “scandal” levels of Audrey Hepburn assuming the Julie Andrews role in My Fair Lady, for Broadway cognoscenti at least, it may have been a bit of a disappointment not to see Verdon in the role. Verdon was on set, at least reportedly, helping MacLaine to master the complex choreography, but even without Verdon’s mentoring MacLaine probably would have acquitted herself more than adequately in a role that plays to MacLaine’s strengths as a romantic naif caught in a kind of smarmy, morally questionable, world.

There's an undeniably vignette driven approach to Sweet Charity, and fans who have seen the original stage version know that Bob Fosse fashioned a kind of vaudeville-esque escapade that in some ways presaged his later work on the original Broadway version of Chicago. The basic set up of Sweet Charity is simplicity itself: it's the story of a girl who wanted to be loved, as one of its subtitles announces. Charity works as a dance hall hostess, where her naivete about romantic matters makes her the occasional butt of jokes, though she's obviously loved by her co-workers and roommates Nikki (Chita Rivera) and Helene (Paula Kelly).

Charity drifts in and out of various adventures, including having a run in with a famous film star named Vittorio Vitale (Ricardo Montalban), but it's when she meets cute with an ultra nervous insurance agent named Oscar Lindquist (John McMartin) that her string of bad luck in boyfriends seems to be coming to an end. That "end" was the source of some controversy at the time of the film's production, as evidenced by the two different endings of the two versions offered on this release.

Sweet Charity marketed itself as "the musical motion picture of the 70s", but it's pretty resolutely 1969 every step of the way, from its mod costumes, to some then trendy use of zooms and still photographs as interstitial elements. But aside from the really winning score by Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields, one that produced standards in "Big Spender" and "If They Could See Me Now" along with a slew of other well remembered songs, it's probably the unbelievable dancing that really sets Sweet Charity apart from its late sixties' musical siblings. The club scene with Vittorio and Charity is a definite standout (and keep your eyes peeled for a young Ben Vereen as one of the dancers; Vereen would of course move on to starring in Fosse's staging of Pippin on Broadway in a couple of years). The rooftop trio with Charity, Nikki and Helene doing "There's Gotta Be Something Better Than This" is an obvious rip-off of "America" from West Side Story, but in virtually every other dance sequence in the film, Fosse is charting his own very distinctive territory.

Sweet Charity Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Sweet Charity is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. Kino is advertising a "brand new 4K restoration of the Roadshow* Edition" as well as a "newly restored in 4K" transfer of the Alternate Version, but as fans have pointed out, the look of this release, along with some missing music, may suggest this is sourced off the same master that was released in France a couple of years ago. One way or the other, this is a largely ravishing looking presentation, one that offers a mostly vivid palette, and one that is especially impressive in some of the reds, purples and blues it purveys. Grain resolves beautifully throughout the presentation, and detail levels are routinely high. There are a few slightly ragged looking moments, many featuring the still photographs that are used as interstitial elements, but also some of the big club scene, where I'm now wondering if they didn't immediately cut out of the opticals for the superimposed titles of the dances, since there's just a slightly "dupey" look at times, one that I frankly hadn't noticed as much on the old DVD release of the film. There are no major signs of age related wear and tear and no compression issues that I noticed.

Sweet Charity Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Sweet Charity features DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 tracks on both of the versions included in this release. While there's the arguably overly "wet" sound to a lot of the music, something that is immediately apparent once dialogue kicks in with a "dryer" (i.e., less reverb) sound, both tracks offer sterling fidelity and rather robust sonics. I notice we have one Member Review up for this release here already where there is a complaint about amplitude of the dialogue, but all I can say is I experienced no such falloff when I watched the film. There are occasional minor sync issues that I attribute either to lip synching or post-dubbing, but dialogue and sung material all resonates with great clarity. The surround track certainly opens up the orchestrations, as well as providing some fun immersion (in more ways than one) in some sound effects out in the urban hustle and bustle the film offers. There is some noticeable hiss on the 5.1 version during the solo guitar work that accompanies some of the photo montages.

Trivia fans may know that Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields penned two new songs for this version, "My Personal Property" and "It's a Nice Face", probably in the hopes of securing an Academy Award nomination for Best Song (they failed in that regard). Coleman also wrote a pretty delicious new setting for the title song that largely retains Fields' original lyric from the stage version. Kind of interestingly, the film omits one of the stage version's better known songs, "Baby, Dream Your Dream", and some fans (like this one, sorry) may argue that "I'm the Bravest Individual" was a catchier tune for the elevator scene than "It's a Nice Face".

This is really a propos of nothing other than my inveterate geekiness (see my final comments below for more examples), but those aforementioned Swingle Singer-esque vocals that open the film feature singers who sound remarkably like the session singers who populated late sixties "easy listening" recordings by Hugo Montenegro in particular. I'd love to know who sang on these sessions; if any other inveterate geeks out there happen to know, Private Message me.

Sweet Charity Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One

• Roadshow* Edition (1080p; 2:31:11)


• Edith Head's Costume Design: The Art of Exaggeration (480p; 7:29) is a fun archival piece looking at Head's Oscar nominated creations for the film.


• Sweet Charity: From the Stage to the Screen (480p; 9:01) is an archival featurette that is actually titled A Director's Dilemma, that I think might have aired on an NBC Saturday Night at the Movies back in the day to help fill a two hour time slot that the feature that evening must not have (I have a vague memory of having seen it in that context). This has some fun footage of Fosse in action.


• Sweet Charity Trailer (480p; 1:39)

Disc Two

• Alternate Edition (1080p; 2:24:51) features the alternative "happy" (happier?) ending.


• Audio Commentary by Film Historian Kat Ellinger. Ms. Ellinger has provided some kind of fun commentaries for a number of cult Arrow releases, but I found this particular outing kind of hit or miss. I also have an occasionally hard time understanding her accent, for what that's worth.

Additionally, the insert booklet features an essay by Julie Kirgo.

*As fans of the film no doubt know by now, this omits some of the music, notably the Entr'acte and Exit cues, and so some are perhaps understandably insisting this isn't in actuality the original Roadshow version of the film.

Sweet Charity Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Readers with long memories who stumbled across my Anne of the Thousand Days Blu-ray review may recall I offered a "pre-confession" of my inveterate geekiness in the closing comments of that review, an admission that was linked directly to Sweet Charity, with a promise that I would finish my "geek mea culpa" should Kino Lorber ever get around to releasing this film. And so, here goes. As I mentioned in some background information included in my write up of the Richard Burton - Genevieve Bujold offering, Anne of the Thousand Days topped the Academy Award nominations that year in terms of numbers of nominations. But, here's the thing: I was so enamored of Sweet Charity, I was aching to know if it had been nominated for anything, and in fact I was positive it was going to be the most nominated film of all time (I'm telling you, I was a geek personified). That was back in the days before dedicated entertainment channels or even in depth reporting on such things in newspapers, and typically you only knew what nominations a film had gotten if it was for one of the "big" awards, or if it was still being screened theatrically and ad campaigns started mentioning the nominations (and in fact Anne of the Thousand Days was indeed still being screened and proudly trumpeted its ten nominations in a lot of its print ads). But by the time the Oscar nominations came out in 1970, Sweet Charity had long since ended its major theatrical run, and so no ads were running, at least in Seattle, where I was living at the time. But, one of the Seattle papers had a weird little article like nothing I had ever seen before (or, really, since, except in industry or trade publications) where they listed all the major studios and how many nominations for how many films they had received, and in that list was "Universal: 13 nominations, 2 films", and, knowing Anne of the Thousand Days was a Universal film with 10 nominations, I surmised that the "other" film had to be Sweet Charity and that it had (sadly in my mind) gotten only three nominations. I think I had to wait until the actual awards ceremony that year to find out what three nominations it had racked up (Art Direction/Set Decoration; Costume Design; and Score of a Musical Picture). So there's my nascent film geek confession, testament to a child who was dazzled by this film and continues to enjoy it despite its now "quaint" vibe and stylistic flourishes. Some others who evidently feel as strongly about this film as I do are apparently pretty miffed at the missing music on this release; I'm counting myself lucky to have it with such generally stunning video and audio, and so with missing music caveats duly noted, Sweet Charity comes Highly recommended.