Taglines: Love is what it’s all about!
Sweet Charity movie storyline. Charity Hope Valentine works as a taxi dancer in a sleazy dance hall alongside her two best friends, Nickie and Helene. They have no illusions that what they are doing is renting out their bodies to any man who will pay. Charity wants more than anything to be loved. As she wears her heart on her sleeve, she is vulnerable to sleaze-balls who will take advantage of her trusting nature and that desperation to be loved.
Nickie and Helene know that Charity’s stories about her love life, although having a base of reality, are highly exaggerated and fantasized versions of the truth, such as the story of her encounter with famed Italian movie star, Vittoro Vitale. But after eight years in the business, Charity comes to the realization that she cannot meet decent men in her job, which she tries to change despite her lack of skills for “respectable” jobs.
Her luck with men may change when she meets insurance actuary Oscar Lindquist, who mistakenly believes Charity is a respectable girl who works in a bank. Oscar falls for Charity, who in turn falls for the love directed at her. The questions become whether Oscar’s love will remain if/when he finds out the truth behind Charity, and if so whether they can overcome their fundamental differences.
Sweet Charity (full title: Sweet Charity: The Adventures of a Girl Who Wanted to Be Loved) is a 1969 American musical comedy-drama film directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse (in his feature directorial debut), written by Peter Stone, and featuring music by Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields.
It stars Shirley MacLaine and features John McMartin, Sammy Davis Jr., Ricardo Montalbán, Chita Rivera, Paula Kelly and Stubby Kaye. It is based on the 1966 stage musical of the same name – which Fosse had also directed and choreographed – which in turn is based on Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano and Tullio Pinelli’s screenplay for Fellini’s film Nights of Cabiria (Le Notti di Cabiria, 1957). However, whereas Fellini’s film concerns the romantic ups-and-downs of an ever-hopeful prostitute, the musical makes the central character a dancer-for-hire at a Times Square dance-hall.
The film received three Academy Award nominations: Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Alexander Golitzen, George C. Webb, Jack D. Moore); Best Costume Design; and Best Music, Score of a Musical Picture (Original or Adaptation). It received one Golden Globe nomination for Shirley MacLaine as Best Motion Picture Actress – Musical / Comedy. It was also screened at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival, but outside of the main competition.
Sweet Charity (1969)
Directed by: Bob Fosse
Starring: Shirley MacLaine, John McMartin, Ricardo Montalban, Sammy Davis Jr., Chita Rivera, Paula Kelly, Stubby Kaye, Barbara Bouchet, Suzanne Charny, Alan Hewitt, Dante DiPaolo, Lee Roy Reams
Screenplay by: Peter Stone
Production Design by: Ernest B. Wehmeyer
Cinematography by: Robert Surtees
Film Editing by: Stuart Gilmore
Costume Design by: Edith Head
Set Decoration by: Jack D. Moore
Art Direction by: Alexander Golitzen, George C. Webb
Music by: Cy Coleman, Dorothy Fields
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: April 1, 1969
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