50 Fun Facts About Flowers for Algernon

Under what one-word title was Flowers for Algernon filmed in 1968, its poster printing the R backwards?

Charly, stylised CHAЯLY in its marketing, won its star the Academy Award for Best Actor and was written for the screen by Stirling Silliphant.

Which actor bought the film rights to Flowers for Algernon after playing Charlie Gordon on television in 1961?

Cliff Robertson won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the 1968 film, a part he had first played in a 1961 anthology-television episode.

What IQ does Charlie Gordon demonstrate before the operation, in both versions of Flowers for Algernon?

Charlie's IQ of 68 triples after the surgery, and his early progress reports are riddled with spelling errors that fade as his mind sharpens.

Where does Charlie Gordon work in the 1959 Flowers for Algernon novelette, before the novel moved him to a bakery?

A factory is the novelette's setting for Charlie's menial job, where co-workers Joe Carp and Frank Reilly pose as his friends while mocking him.

Which sitcom's 2013 episode 'Flowers for Charlie' puts its janitor on an intelligence pill, parodying Keyes's novel?

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia had Charlie Day describe the episode as Charlie getting smarter 'in a Limitless style', and the pill makes him quit his janitor job.

Who teaches Charlie Gordon's reading and writing class at Beekman College, and recommends him for the experiment?

Alice Kinnian's recommendation, plus Charlie's eagerness to improve, gets him chosen over smarter pupils; she later becomes his lover, then finds she can no longer relate to him.

Which personality test frustrates Charlie Gordon, a scene Keyes drew from his own anxious college years?

The Rorschach test baffled Keyes when he took it as a college student probing the causes of his anxiety, and he handed Charlie the same frustration.

What contest does Charlie repeatedly lose to Algernon before his surgery in the 1968 film, then finally win afterwards?

Racing through mazes pits Charlie's paper puzzles against models Algernon runs, and the researchers later screen that test footage at a scientific convention.

Which diner worker's humiliation makes Charlie Gordon realise he has become one of the mockers he once endured?

A teenage dishwasher, a disabled 16-year-old, is laughed at by Charlie before he rounds on the patrons in the boy's defence, ashamed of forgetting his own past.

Which request from a disabled pupil Keyes taught in 1957 became the pivotal moment behind Flowers for Algernon?

To join an ordinary class if he worked hard and became smart was the boy's hope; Keyes also watched another pupil lose everything he had learned after leaving regular lessons.

Which element of Flowers for Algernon do most library challenges in America and Canada object to?

Its sexual content, Charlie's struggle to understand and express desire, drives most challenges, which mostly fail, even as the book is taught in schools around the world.

How does the 1968 film of Flowers for Algernon end, unlike the novel's postscript bound for a state institution?

With children in a playground is where his teacher last sees the regressed Charlie, after he had asked her never to visit him again.

Which literary effect does Charlie Gordon's early narration create, as readers grasp his plight better than he does?

Dramatic irony arises because Charlie's low intelligence makes him an unreliable narrator, until his awareness overtakes the reader's and he becomes a reliable one.

What IQ does Charlie Gordon reach at his peak in the Flowers for Algernon novel, nearly triple his starting figure?

An IQ of 185 comes with buried childhood memories of his mother Rose and a resentful younger sibling, which surface as his mind sharpens.

Where is Algernon buried, the grave Charlie Gordon's final postscript asks someone to put flowers on?

His own backyard at his former residence holds Algernon, whom Charlie buried himself after the mouse's intelligence collapsed and he died.

What term describes the form of Flowers for Algernon, assembled from dated progress reports rather than chapters?

Epistolary novels are built from documents, and here the spelling and grammar of each report track Charlie's mind from a few days before the operation to his regression.

Which 2012 spy sequel, its soldier hero reliant on pills to keep his intelligence, echoes Flowers for Algernon?

The Bourne Legacy centres much of its action on securing a supply of the soldier's drugs, and one scene captures his fear of slipping back to his former state just as Charlie does.

Which country produced television drama adaptations of Flowers for Algernon in both 2002 and 2015?

Japan's 2002 version aired on Fuji Television with Yūsuke Santamaria, and the 2015 one on Tokyo Broadcasting System starred Tomohisa Yamashita.

With which Samuel R. Delany novel did Flowers for Algernon share the 1966 Nebula Award for Best Novel?

Babel-17 shared the honour in only the Nebula's second year, and Delany won the next year's award outright for The Einstein Intersection.

Which magazine published the Flowers for Algernon novelette in 1959, after a rival's editor demanded a happy ending?

Fantasy & Science Fiction printed the 26-page novelette as the lead of its April 1959 issue, after Keyes turned down Galaxy's request that Charlie keep his intelligence and marry.

Which prize did the Flowers for Algernon novelette win in 1960, before the Nebulas even existed?

The Hugo Award went to the novelette in 1960 in the short-fiction category, and the expanded novel was later a best-novel nominee at the 1967 Worldcon.

Who played Charlie's night-school teacher, the woman he comes to love, in the 1968 film of Flowers for Algernon?

Claire Bloom's teacher sharply rejects Charlie's first confession of love, then the pair consider marriage before his decline sets in.

Which composer of Annie wrote the music for Charlie and Algernon, the 1978 stage musical of Flowers for Algernon?

Charles Strouse had already written Bye Bye Birdie and Annie when the show premiered in Canada in December 1978.

Which anthology series aired 'The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon', the 1961 television version of Flowers for Algernon?

The United States Steel Hour cast Mona Freeman as the teacher opposite the future film star, who reprised the role for the cinema seven years later.

Who played Charlie Gordon in the 2000 CBS television film of Flowers for Algernon, shot in Toronto?

Matthew Modine's Charlie buries Algernon in secret to stop the mouse being dissected, then asks his teacher to bring flowers to the grave.

Over roughly what span do Charlie Gordon's progress reports run, from just before the operation to his full regression?

Almost five months separate the first shaky report from the last, with spelling and punctuation improving and then crumbling in between.

Which relative does the regressing Charlie Gordon reconnect with, the one now caring for his mother with dementia?

His sister Norma, who resented Charlie as a child, now looks after their mother in the family's old home, while their father Matt fails to recognise him at all.

In which city is the 1968 film of Flowers for Algernon set, relocating Charlie from the novel's New York?

Boston's historic sights 'have never been more lovingly filmed', Time magazine allowed, while mocking the director's split screens and slow motion.

Which publisher's advance did Keyes return when it, too, insisted he change the ending of Flowers for Algernon?

Doubleday was one of several publishers to reject the novel over a year before Harcourt took it in 1966, with the Bantam paperback following in 1968.

Which Victorian poet's first name did Daniel Keyes borrow for the laboratory mouse in Flowers for Algernon?

Swinburne, the Victorian poet, supplied the name, while the mouse himself was inspired by a university dissection class.

From which work does Flowers for Algernon take its epigraph on the eye's bewilderment when 'coming out of the light'?

Plato's Republic, Book VII, warns that the mind's eye is bewildered both by entering the light and by leaving it, the arc Charlie's rise and fall traces.

Which career did Daniel Keyes's parents push him toward in 1945, a conflict he traced Flowers for Algernon back to?

Medicine was the pre-med path his parents wanted, and Keyes felt his education was driving a wedge between them, which set him wondering about raising a person's intelligence.

Which ancient thinker's claim that tragedy needs a highborn hero did Keyes set out to test with Charlie Gordon?

Aristotle's Poetics says a tragic fall needs a great height, so Keyes raised a 'lowborn' man to genius before taking it all away.

Which Robert A. Heinlein lunar-revolt novel beat Flowers for Algernon for best novel at the 1967 Worldcon?

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress beat Keyes's book in the 1967 vote, months after Galaxy's critic Algis Budrys had named it the best novel of the year.

Where does Flowers for Algernon sit on the American Library Association's 100 most challenged books of 1990–1999?

Number 43 puts the book in the list's top half, and challenges have occasionally succeeded in removing it from school libraries in Pennsylvania and Texas.

Which Galaxy editor suggested Flowers for Algernon end with Charlie keeping his intelligence and marrying his teacher?

Horace Gold had approached Keyes in 1958 for a story, but Keyes refused the change and sold the tale to a rival magazine instead.

Who directed and produced the 1968 film of Flowers for Algernon, having earlier made Lilies of the Field?

Ralph Nelson was nominated for the Golden Bear when the film premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in June 1968.

Which Indian sitar virtuoso composed the music for the 1968 film of Flowers for Algernon?

Ravi Shankar's music underscored a film that Entertainment Weekly later ranked among its '25 Best Movie Tearjerkers Ever'.

What was Daniel Keyes teaching to disabled students in 1957 when a pupil's question sparked Flowers for Algernon?

English classes were Keyes's day job in 1957, the year before Galaxy magazine invited him to write a story and the elements 'fell into place'.

In which borough does Charlie Gordon's mother still occupy the family's old home when he visits during his decline?

Brooklyn's old family house is where Rose, now suffering from dementia, recognises her son only briefly.

Which honour did the SFWA, the genre writers' body, give Daniel Keyes in 2000, largely for Flowers for Algernon?

Author Emeritus recognised a significant contribution to the genre, and it came in the same era as Keyes's memoir Algernon, Charlie and I: A Writer's Journey.

Where did the Flowers for Algernon novelette finish when SFWA members ranked 132 pre-1965 stories in a retroactive poll?

Third out of 132 nominees earned the story a place in the 1970 anthology edited by Robert Silverberg, volume one of the Hall of Fame series.

Which future Phantom of the Opera star played Charlie in the 1979 West End musical of Flowers for Algernon?

Michael Crawford sang one number with a trained white mouse running from hand to hand across his shoulders, a trick he repeated in The Woman in White in 2004.

Which 1981 Tony nomination did the musical Charlie and Algernon earn despite closing after 17 Broadway performances?

Best Original Score was the nod for a show that opened at the Helen Hayes Theatre on September 14, 1980 and closed a fortnight later, though a London cast album survives.

What do the bakery workers tell Charlie to do in the 1968 film of Flowers for Algernon, hoping he breaks it?

Run a complex machine is the dare, and Charlie operates it flawlessly, so his embarrassed co-workers persuade the owners to fire him instead.

Which world's fair did critics invoke to mock the split-screen tricks in the 1968 film of Flowers for Algernon?

Expo 67 was Vincent Canby's jibe, calling the direction 'neo-Expo 67', while Time said the director seemed determined to prove he had learned 'how to be new and now' there.

Which novelist first scripted the 1968 film of Flowers for Algernon before Stirling Silliphant replaced him?

William Goldman was hired on the strength of his novel No Way to Treat a Lady and paid $30,000 from the star's own pocket before being let go.

Which unsubmitted comic-book synopsis from Keyes's Atlas days grew into Flowers for Algernon?

Brainstorm began 'The first guy in the test to raise the I.Q. from a low normal 90 to genius level', and Keyes felt it 'should be more than a comic book script'.

Which Spider-Man villain stars in a 2001 comic story whose title is modelled on Flowers for Algernon?

Rhino's tale, 'Flowers for Rhino', was drawn by Duncan Fegredo for the Spider-Man's Tangled Web series.

Who played Dr. Anna Straus, the female version of Dr. Strauss, in the 1968 film of Flowers for Algernon?

Lilia Skala's Straus works beside Leon Janney's Dr. Richard Nemur, and together they present Charlie at a scientific convention.