Sweet Charity (1969)

  This movie was such a disappointment.  I've always heard the music, which is great, and I always imagined the choreography would be good since it's Bob Fosse, and it is, but the story sucks. 

Charity Valentine (Shirley MacLaine) is a total idiot when it comes to men.  Granted, she doesn't meet very many sterling examples in her job as a "dance hall hostess".  Men pay for the women to dance with them, which basically means they get groped for half an hour.  She is constantly telling her co-workers about how great all these men are and they constantly tell her she's full of shit.  She doesn't even have any luck when she meets her idol, Italian movie star Vittorio Vitali (Ricardo Montalban), right after he's been dumped by his bitchy, high-class girlfriend.  He drags her around all night and just when it starts to look like she's hit the big leagues, the girlfriend shows back up and Charity spends the entire night in Vittorio's closet while he has sex with his ex.  Awkward.  Undaunted, Charity decides she is going to better her life and tries to get a respectable job but gets laughed out of the temp agency and ends up stuck in the elevator with a cute, if claustrophobic and panic-stricken, insurance actuary (John McMartin).  For once, she doesn't get treated like crap in a relationship and it looks like everything is going her way...until he mentions how he's so glad she hasn't succumbed to the moral decay of the big city.

**SPOILERS BELOW**

Here's where the movie totally loses me.  She comes clean about her job and Oscar the insurance guy tells her that none of it matters anymore and he wants to marry her.  Well and good, until her co-workers decide to throw her a surprise engagement party.  Despite the fact that these are lovely people who genuinely care about Charity, Oscar gets all freaked out about it and tells her at the county clerk's office that, despite what he said earlier, he cannot go through with the marriage.  Despondent, Charity wanders through Central Park until some hippies wake her up in the morning with a flower.  Then, suddenly, she smiles and goes about her merry day.

This bugs me.  One:  it's a musical and I expect a happy ending to go along with my jazz hands and two:  what kind of stupid broad bounces back that fast?  I tend towards the 'anger' side of the emotional spectrum rather than 'sad' and I have had my share of break-ups.  I would have easier accepted her throwing herself off the bridge in despair or, and I think this is healthier, paying some thug to break Oscar's legs.  Instead, she just shrugs and accepts it as her lot in life.  That's fucking pathetic.  It is not hopeful and it is not heart-warming.

It's based on a Fellini film called Nights of Cabiria which would explain a lot.  Somehow, I'm guessing this movie is probably better in Italian.