Sweet Charity

Charity Hope Valentine is the girl, or more accurately the woman, employed as a hostess at a New York dance hall in the late 1960’s. Inside the Fan-Dango Ballroom Charity is companioned with streetwise hostesses who often share their cynical advice about love and occasionally their long abandoned dreams while Herman (the dance-hall manager the girls affectionately refer to as “Der Fuhrer”) makes sure the customers get what they’ve paid for. Outside the dance hall, Charity’s innocent vulnerability is repeatedly taken advantage of by con artists, panhandlers, and even a boyfriend who pushes her into a lake while stealing her life’s savings. But our heroine does manage a fleeting glimpse of fame when she unexpectedly spends the night in the closet of the Italian screen idol, Vittorio Vidal while he reconciles with his beautiful jet-set girlfriend.

Charity’s “real” chance for happiness comes when the fickle finger of fate traps her in an elevator with a claustrophobic tax accountant (Oscar Lindquist) who also seems to be in search of … “something”. Charity joins Oscar as he attends a service at the Rhythm of Life Church led by the Reverend Daddy Brubeck, the spiritual leader of a former San Francisco jazz group turned religious cult. Romance ensues only to falter when Oscar discovers Charity’s true occupation and dating history. Through trials and tribulations, sweet Charity continues searching for love, wide-eyed and hopeful.