GOODBYE CHARLIE, written as a play by George Axelrod, and starring Lauren Bacall, expired on Broadway in 1959 after 109 performances. Nonetheless someone at 20 Century Fox (apparently Darryl F. Zanuck) authorized shelling out $150,000 for the rights ($1,626,000 in 2024), hoping to do it with Marilyn Monroe. MM passed, first on the project, then from life, but by 1964 the property finally chugged in at a cost of $3,500,000, starring Tony Curtis, Debbie Reynolds, Pat Boone and Walter Matthau. Harry Kurnitz did the script, the once-feted, now limping Vincente Minnelli directed.  The popularity of Curtis and Reynolds was enough to take it to 27th place for the year, but few, then and now, have been pleased with the results.

During a swinger party at his Malibu pad, Hollywood writer & well-known wolf ‘Charlie Sorrel’ is shot and killed by a jealous producer ( Matthau). Novelist pal ‘George Tracy’ (Curtis) shows up to deliver a eulogy for the mostly unmissed dead guy. George is surprised when area neighbor ‘Bruce Minton III’ (Boone) appears with a woman he found on the beach road, wandering, confused and nude. George’s irk turns to astonishment when the lady (Reynolds) turns out to be Charlie, reincarnated as a woman. Same mindset, different package. Now what?

Other than the game efforts from Tony, Debbie and Pat, not much, as the gender-bending gimmick just isn’t funny. There are a handful of smiles, but it mostly just lies there and dies there, to say nothing of going on way too long at 117 minutes. For Matthau, his dispirited performance complete with awful Hungarian accent, marked a low point; he at least could console himself with a strong, dead-serious role in Fail-Safe. At 29, Boone’s big screen success (hooray for Journey To The Center Of The Earth) had come and gone; he does what he can with a wan part; if you need to snicker at legendary straight arrow Boone in a deal where he’s making a play for a girl who’s really a guy, fell free to knock yourself gay. Tony & Deb? Of her 12 features in the decade, 10 were comedies, for him it was 15 out of 22. Troupers, they give forth with energetic effort, but it’s a losing battle against the material: not helped that Charlie remains a jerk regardless of his form, so any comic sympathy is AWOL. Tony’s three other 1964 pictures were all jokers—Sex And The Single Girl, Wild And Wonderful, a cameo in Paris When It Sizzles; none did him any favors. Debbie had a big hit that year in The Unsinkable Molly Brown, but I have to bail on that obnoxious musical. She does some amusing physical shtick as Charlie the Dame but it’s not sufficient to salvage the show.  In the supporting cast, Roger C. Carmel makes the sly most in his bit as a detective.

Box office was $10,100,000. With Joanna Barnes, Ellen Burstyn (aka Ellen McRae), Laura Devon, Martin Gabel, Michael Romanoff, Donna Michelle (Playboy’s 18-year-old 1964 Playmate of the Year, a BIG DEAL when I was ten years old) James Brolin (unbilled, 23).

Remade by Blake Edwards in 1991, as Switch, with Ellen Barkin and Jimmy Smits. Skip Switch. Say adios to Charlie.