MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant

Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

blanche-2 I guess this was the weekend on TCM for '60s international films. In the '60s, most of what was done was big - big historical dramas, big western dramas, big international comedies, and done on a smaller scale, the sex comedies like Sex and the Single Girl.What's New Pussycat was an international sex comedy with the usual huge, well known cast: Peter Sellers, Romy Schneider, Peter O'Toole, Ursula Andress, Paula Prentiss, Capucine, with a cameo by Richard Burton. This was Woody Allen's first produced film script and his first film role. It wasn't a happy experience.Peter O'Toole plays Michael James, the British editor of a Paris magazine He is in love with Carole (Schneider). She wants to get married, but he can't commit to her. Women are constantly after him, and he is constantly giving in.He sees one Dr. Fritz Fassbender (Sellers) who wants Michael's life, particularly one of his patient, Renee (Capucine). Carole, meanwhile, is friendly with Michael's friend Victor (Allen) who is crazy about her and also wants Michael's life. The whole thing converges at the Château Chantel one weekend. This film is purportedly based on the love life of Warren Beatty and the title taken from the way he answered the phone. He obviously did not wind up making the film. Peter Sellers adlibbed through a great deal of the movie and took all of Woody Allen's funny lines, diminishing Allen's part. The two of them loathed one another.What's New Pussycat started out hilariously, with funny dialogue and situations. As it went on, it became more and more of an annoying mess and went out of control, culminating in a Keystone Kops type scene that was very funny. However, what preceded it was disorganized insanity.There definitely are funny scenes and good performances. Paula Prentiss is especially good, as is Allen. Sellers is great until he seems to veer off of the script. I'm not sure if Peter O'Toole did his own stunts, but some of what he did was fantastic - the role called for him to be very physical. He was quite funny. Romy Schneider as usual was the straight man to this chicanery.Watch in the bar scene where Peter O'Toole and a man talk and O'Toole says, give my best to what's-her-name - it's Richard Burton, and the what's-her-name is guess who. Very cute. I like slapstick, I like madcap, but I like it structured, so I'm not the best judge of this. I prefer the MGM Marx Brothers to the Paramount ones, for instance. This was hard to take after a while.

Dalbert Pringle After watching 1965's "What's New, Pussycat?" ("WNP?", for short), which has often been so smugly touted as being the absolute epitome of the "Swinging 60s", I am now thoroughly convinced that that particular era in pop culture history was, in reality, a total farce.To say that "WNP?" actually turned out to be even worse than I had at first imagined would truly be an understatement. In fact, "WNP?" was purr-fectly awful for the most part.Not only was Peter Sellers (wearing a hideously stupid-looking wig) completely asinine as the lecherous psychiatrist, Fritz Fassbender - But, Woody Allen's screenplay (his first) was filled to overflowing with a humongous dung-heap of misfired gags and one-liners that were, literally, so funny that I forgot to laugh.To be honest - "WNP?'s" opening sequence actually did show some really promising potential. But once the story stepped beyond this point it got itself so annoyingly bogged down with one of the most demented "on-again/off-again" relationships between a man and a woman ever conceived in movie history.With its almost-unbearable 2-hour running time, "WNP?" not only repeatedly cried out for some serious editing, but it also begged for some major story reconstruction, as well.

ShadeGrenade During the '60's, the late Clive Donner made several modish comedies, of which 'What's New Pussycat' is probably the best known because it marked the acting/writing debut of Woody Allen. Its theme - 20th century Man's never-ending preoccupation with sex - is one Allen returned to in later films. Peter O'Toole plays 'Michael James', editor of Parisian fashion magazine 'Chic'. Everywhere he goes, incredibly beautiful women are willing to leap into his bed. He wants to marry the lovely Carole ( Romy Schneider ), but cannot bring himself to propose because he faces too much temptation. He goes to psychiatrist Dr.Fritz Fassbinder ( Peter Sellers ). The good doctor is madder than many of his patients. Envious of Michael's way with women, he begs him to help him bed a patient called Renee Lefebvre ( Capucine )...Anyone familiar with Woody's later movies might be startled on viewing 'Pussycat' for the first time. It is a film Woody later came to despise, mainly because his script was altered by the stars, particularly O'Toole and Sellers. As well as exploiting the myth of Paris as the 'sex capital of the world', there is a 'Goon Show' flavour to some of the humour; at a strip club, Michael finds Fassbinder in the audience. Embarrassed, the doctor says he followed him there. When Michael points out that he was there already, Fassbinder says: "I followed you fast'.". Woody originally wanted the film to be more like a Marx Brothers romp, and wrote the part of 'Fassbinder' with Groucho in mind. Producer Charles K.Feldman had other ideas. Sellers was a hot property in the States thanks to 'Dr.Strangelove' and other pictures. Clad in a reject Nana Mouskouri wig and sporting a bogus Teutonic accent, he virtually shouts his way through the script. It is not one of his finest hours. O'Toole is miscast, bringing a heavy hand to what should have been a light role. It is hard to see why all these women find him so attractive ( and no, I'm not saying that out of jealousy! ). The main laughs come from Woody himself as Michael's geeky chum 'Victor Shakapopolis', who works in the local strip club dressing the girls before they go on stage. "Ten francs a week", he tells an astonished Michael. "That's not much!". Victor replies: "Its all I can afford!". In a very funny scene, Victor is with Carole ( whom he hopes to bed ) in a library when a thug snatches away her book. Victor sets about trying to teach the thug a lesson. Another has Michael and Carole having a row at the language school where she works, and the class start repeating their insults in the belief it is part of the lesson. Here we get a glimpse of the Allen comedies to come, such as 'Take The Money & Run' and 'Bananas'. Also good is Paula Prentiss as neurotic stripper 'Liz Bien' ( think about that name for a second ) who keeps trying to kill herself every five minutes. Her strip tease routine is genuinely erotic and thrilling ( though we see nothing we shouldn't! )Things To Look Out For - a walk-on from O'Toole's 'Becket' co-star - Richard Burton!With its distinctive Richard Williams Studios credits, Tom Jones theme song ( other numbers in the film were by Dionne Warwick and Manfred Mann ) by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, the film was a massive hit. But for my money it comes across as forced, with everyone enjoying themselves a bit too much. The finale takes place at Château Chantelle, and has the cast chasing each other Tom & Jerry style, culminating in a go-kart scene that seems to be there only because someone thought a go-kart chase would liven up the film at that point. If Allen's ideas had been adhered to, the whole thing might have been better. Nevertheless, it is interesting from a historical perspective as an early example of the trendy sex comedy. It could not have been made five years earlier.Popping up near the end ( she parachutes into Michael's car ) is Ursula Andress - the first 'Bond' girl - as 'Rita'. She, along with Sellers, O'Toole and Allen, reunited for Feldman's next production - the even more outrageous 'Casino Royale'.

george karpouzas This is a movie that took me by surprise in the sense that when a boy at school it was shown in the national television but I had not seen it although it was much talked about. I remembered that Peter Sellers played the role of a psychoanalyst and that the content of the movie had vaguelly to do with human relationships between the sexes but not much more. When I rented it from the video-club and watched it, I was amazed because it is a movie that while it appears silly is in fact quite multi-layered. First of all it unmistakably carries the zeitgeist of the time it was made, that is the sixties and the culture of sexual liberation. While the philosophy of relations the movie portrays is libertarian, great care has been taken to avoid sexual explicitness which is something that contrasts those times with the present, even if the message of a modern movie may be more conservative as such despite having stronger sex scenes.The cast is also stellar at least for someone who is of a different age and therefore tends to idealize the actors of a bygone if emblematic era. Some scenes as the attempt to woe the girl by Sellers and O'Toole down from the window which resulted in the intervention of the police or the dream with Sellers appearing as Richard the 3rd, or the mess in the hotel and even Sellers mock attempt at suicide while Allen had his birthday solo-feast are classic having theatrical, surreal and farcical elements.Another point to make is the sheer attractiveness of the female protagonists without ever boarding towards vulgarity which is something admirable to achieve in the movie. A constellation of very classy people appear on screen to use that trite but apt expression.The essence and feel of the city- Paris, comes out very well, at least the impression of it one has formed from films, photographs and books although I have been in Paris and certain things I saw in the movie are still there at least to the time of my last visit.A very positive impression has been created to me by this film which portrays the 60's Paris and the human relationships formed there as hedonistic light-hearted paradise full of consumers of pleasure and and beautiful things, with personalities larger than life and weak superegos, living in a panacea of gratification and only ineffectually harassed by ridiculous figures of authority and repression such as the police. If only actual human reality was like this!