Having tried and failed to produce the David Westheimer novel and play My Sweet Charlie as a theatrical film, Richard Levinson and William Link had to be content with making the property as a TV movie-which turned out to be one of the very best of its kind. Al Freeman, Jr. plays Charlie, a black New York lawyer falsely accused of a crime in a rural Texas town. Escaping from his tormentors, Charlie takes refuge in a boarded-up farmhouse. Here he meets another fugitive: unmarried, pregnant Marlene Chambers (Patty Duke). Hostile towards each other at first, Charlie and Marlene become friends. The story's tragic ending nonetheless holds a glimmer of hope. Emmy Awards went to star Patty Duke (the first ever given to a TV-movie actress) and to the script by Levinson and Link. First telecast January 20, 1970, My Sweet Charlie was later given a brief theatrical release.

My Sweet Charlie is an American television movie directed by Lamont Johnson. The teleplay by Richard Levinson and William Link is based on the novel of the same name by David Westheimer. Produced by Universal Television and broadcast by NBC on January 20, 1970, it later had a brief theatrical release. It is considered a landmark in television films. The film was made on location in Port Bolivar, Texas.

Charles Roberts, a black activist lawyer from the North who is working in Texas, kills a white man in self-defense. Fearing for his life, he flees to a dilapidated lighthouse cabin on the Gulf Coast, and there he finds Marlene Chambers, a pregnant, unwed white girl who has been cast out of her home by her father. Racial tension develops between them, but they eventually grow to respect each other when they realize that they are mutually dependent. One day, Marlene goes into labor, whereupon Charles hurries to the nearby town for supplies and help. He tries to act like a deferential southern Negro toward Treadwell, the prejudiced owner of a small country store, but Charles is quickly offended, and he allows his northern accent to come out. Treadwell begins a row, and Charles runs away; but Treadwell catches up with him, pulls a gun, and kills him.

Theatrical Release Date: February 11, 1970 by Universal