Customer Reviews

What's New Pussycat [VHS]

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

After a long wait for the release of this classic 60s comedy, MGM has tossed the film on its forgettable pile. For what was an extremely successful adult comedy at the time; a return for Peter Sellers after his near fatal heartattacks; the debut of Woody Allen, MGM has treated this film like the second half of a Chuck Norris double-bill. The DVD release is abysmal. It is compressed, it is not in the format of its theatrical release, the colors are washed out in MGM's usual, generic, neo-colorization process. The print is cut. Sequences have been trimmed because they are no longer politically correct. This is especially noticeable in the over-the-top Keystone Kops finale of the film. As an older viewer who saw this film in the theatre in 1965 (and many times thereafter), scenes from the original release are missing on this DVD. Although not outstanding and in questionable taste, the fact that they are missing is a disappointment. It is not a complete print of the original release. The sound mix is poor and that's being polite. How one would wish someone who is still alive and cares would give this film the kind of treatment that "Jaws" will get. I hate MGM. They used to be a studio of quality and now they are worse than Ted Turner in his colorization days.

The sound quality on the DVD was atrocious. Too bad, given the great Burt Bacharach score.

"What's New Pussycat" was Woody Allen's first major film release. Filmed in the city of love, Paris, the story centers around the very complicated love life of the character Michael James (Peter O'Toole), who is trying to stop seeing other women so that he can focus on the one woman he really loves, Carol (Romy Schneider). To help him overcome his sexual addictions, he seeks professional help from the pschotherapist Dr. Fritz Fassbender (Peter Sellers). Unfortuneately for Michael, Dr. Fassbander is in greater need of psychotherapy since his sexual addictions are even more complicated. In the opening scene of the movie, Dr. Fassbender and his wife Anna (Eddra Gale) are fighting about one of his love affairs that she has discovered. She asks him, "Is she prettier than me?" He responds, "Is she prettier than you? I am prettier than you!".

Can Dr. Fassbender help Michael overcome his addiction to love affairs to gain Carol's trust? You will probably enjoy discovering this answer by watching this very funny movie.

I love reading reviews by my God and Goddess-like contemporaries. It's so easy to pass judgement on distant bits of culture from our high and holy PC Olympus! I imagine if the Puritans had had the opportunity to write movie reviews they'd have had about the same tone.

Back in the Sixties (which, oddly, had a history other than that involving Viet Nam, Civil Rights, and Feminism) folks were shaking themselves loose of the straightjacket that had been on them since, at least, the Great Depression, at most, the 13th Century. People wanted fun, color, and wackiness, and they enjoyed getting it. Why else would big no-nonsense film companies interested in profits sink dough into plotless wonders like this film and, say, Casino Royale?

This is kind of a fascist age. Folks of all political stripes are into no-compromise black and white ethics. Everyone's got an opinion. Everyone knows what's right for you. A movie like this is just great for those of us who find all this SERIOUSNESS tiresome, just as it was great for our kindred sisters and brothers back in the Sixties who were sick of their parents lecturing them (Nowadays it's our kids that sound like our dopey tight-[censored] parents--how did we let that happen?). There's no relevancy here, no addressing of pressing social issues--it's just mindless incorrect stupid fun. Buy it and hide it before the young'uns get around to burning it. Watch it while half-listening for the sound of jack boots on the front porch.

Mike Myers must have been thinking of this film to inspire the Saturday Night Live sketch of my title and 'Austin Powers' - between the plot of an inveterate womanizer struggling to change his ways and Peter Sellers' character who may well be Austin's crazed Austrian uncle.

Every frame of this film looks like a full-page color Playboy cartoon - set in posh bachelor pads, grimy artist's garrets, smoky strip clubs, or the corridors of a no-tell-rendezvous hotel...

Not a brilliant piece of film; it sets up and discards an intriguing storyline where Peter O'Toole's friend Woody Allen is attracted to O'Toole's fiancee Romy Schneider, and, at a loss to how to end the film, everyone gets on go-karts and rides around. Much of the humor is (and I *hate* the term) politically incorrect by current standards, so beware.

For all that, I enjoy it immensely. O'Toole plays his role in a totally sympathetic Hugh Grant-sort of way, Sellers is a looney, Burt Bacharach's score is cheerfully deranged, and the women, dear God, they are gorgeous...I found myself attracted to Paula Prentiss's flaky exotic dancer/poet...I may need a few sessions with Dr. Fassbender myself.

Though alot of the laughs here are scattershot, on the whole this is a thoroughly enjoyable bedroom farce. The film is not without it's flaws namely overlength, Peter Sellers at times seems to be channeling his Dr. Strangelove character in his portrayal of psychiatrist Dr. Fassbender, and writer Woody Allen's dweeby character seems an unlikely associate of Peter O'Toole's lothario. The film's virtues include O'Toole's account of a womanizer trying to reform his ways. O'Toole has a deft touch for the broad comedy he's asked to tackle here. Romy Schneider is effervescent as the woman O'Toole is trying to settle down with. It goes without saying that Paula Prentiss, Capucine, and Ursula Andress are stunning as the women who throw themselves at O'Toole despite his resistance. Great mod feel here(love the cars and costumes). Catchy Burt Bacharach-Hal David score including the memorable title tune. Great title sequence.

I have been a Peter Sellers fan since the age of 10. This movie is just plain hilarious. From the first scene to the last you will be rolling on the floor. You must listen to the dialogue carefully to catch the subtle parts! Every character plays their part with perfection. The overall atmosphere is very european, taking you back to a simpler and happier time. This is one movie you can watch hundreds of times and never become bored. Purchase this treasure and keep it in your video collection for years to come.

One has to enter into the spirit of the thing: this is a B-movie and doesn't aspire to be anything else. I love the ambiance, the actors, and many of the quirky lines. One of the reviewers said that beautiful women were throwing themselves at Allen, Sellers, and O'Toole, but it's really only O'Toole (it may be the only film where Allen is rejected as much as he would be in real life were he not rich and famous). I admit that as a feminist I have to suspend certain principles, but it's too fun not to love it regardless. My favorite line is the stupidly charming "You are a monster and a monster in that order" by the long-haired psychoanalyst played by Sellers. This is the only movie where Sellers doesn't annoy me to death and is more and more the only one in which I can watch Woody Allen without wanting to strangle him. Not Romy Schneider's best work but always fascinating to look at.

If you don't, you'll probably deduct a star or two. He's at his outrageous best (or worst) in WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT, and sometimes that isn't very pretty. Peter O'Toole plays off of him well, O'Toole is smooth like double malt scotch, and as for Woody Allen, it's hard to believe he won many fans with his antics here. He's much better in CASINO ROYALE, not to mention his own films. WNPC has a lot of zany, 60s, pop energy flying through it, the sets are lighter than air (bar the Chateau Chantel which looks as though it's made of stone) and much of the dialogue seems improvised by a knowing cast.

Capucine has been unfairly reviewed for her part in WNPC, for it is obvious that she was shoved into the movie at the last minute, probably on Feldman's say-so, since she had become his mistress. Yet she did better for herself, I think, before she knew him, kind of like the way Maria Callas was probably better off before becoming Onassis's pawn. She was one of the underused actresses in the early 60s, not a great time for women in general, and her statuesque good looks got her typed as a kind of chic accessory, not an actress at all, more like the "supermodels" of today. Perhaps having only one name didn't help her either, it makes the audience think twice all right but it makes you into a freak. Like "Cher" or "Twiggy." Anyway Capucine has long been thought of as the weak link in What's New Pussycat, but that's just a swipe at a dead woman who's not here to defend herself.

Paula Prentiss is wonderful as the poet slash stripper. As Burt Bacharach's theme music goes, "Stripping Really Isn't Sexy, Is It?" Her poetry is amusing too, I wonder if Woody Allen wrote it for her, it sounds like San Francisco circa 1962 which is when Allen lived here and hung out with all the beat poets and their entourages. He got his big break at the Purple Onion in North Beach, often sharing the stage with Barbra Streisand and Lenny Bruce. But the poets revered him for his verbal acuity and his surrealist bent, his way of turning everything upside down during JFK's shortlived "New Frontier."

Romy Schneider is exquisite, and Ursula Andress charming in her little Kangol-style newsboy cap. This new DVD is disappointingly thin on extras, and unfortunately has none of the scenes that its real fans just know must be somewhere around, for with such a slapdash and carefree pictures, the deleted scenes must be high on the ground! But they're nowhere to be found on this disk, more's the pity!

I am a big fan of Woody Allen and I presume that I will eventually get around to seeing all of his movies. Prior to viewing "What's New Pussycat?", I would have presumed that I would enjoy each and every movie. However, "What's New Pussycat?" has shown me that even Woody Allen can make a disaster movie.

What is wrong with this movie is just about everything. The acting can only do so much with an impossibly awful script and a director who seems to want to magnify the faults rather than cover them up. We start with a man whose problem is that he must seduce every acttractive woman he sees. Peter O'Toole won the rights to play this character and he is surrounded by beautiful women. He proceeds to make it all seem so boringly ridiculous. He calls all his femine friends "pussycat" which gets old after a while. He constantly displays a bewildered expression coupled with a rather interested/disinterested approach toward his playmates. He seeks the help of a sexually challenged psychiatrist played by Peter Sellers. Sellers does his best with what little he has to work with. He has the Dr. Strangelove accent down pretty good and he is constantly on the make but the humor that emerges is so weak as to be embarassing at times. Woody Allen wrote the script, which is the most shocking disappointment of the whole picture. I once heard a comedian remark that a good comic writer can give you 10 new jokes of which you can use 3. With Woody Allen, the comedian said, you can use all 10. In "What's New Pussycat?", I wish there HAD been at least three good jokes. This overlong look into the problems that O'Toole's character suffers from eventually attempts to save itself with a sort of Bennie Hill-style slapstick. I take that back; there's no justifiable reason to besmirch the good name of Bennie Hill by associating it with this turkey. Anyway, the movie ends in a chateau with a sort of musical beds involving all of O'Toole's mistresses. An incomprehensible brouhaha ensues and the revelers escape to a neighboring go-kart track. (Presumeably all fashional French Chateaus have a conveniently adjacent go-kart track). This enables the movie to sink so low that it boggles the mind. After all, we have some top talent in Allen, Sellers and O'toole and we see them spontaneously go go-kart-riding off into the sunset (or the side of a building, or a mud puddle, or something meant to be funny). I was glad to be done with the movie.

Woody Allen is a great talent. Peter Sellers was a great talent. Peter O'Toole was a great talent. Watch them in their other productions but spare yourself the one movie that each one of them should not have made.