Watch What's New Pussycat? For Free

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Memorable, crazy movie

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Why perfect? Well it's not the editing, the chase scene at the end looks like Edward Scissorhands did the cutting. It's not the acting - with everyone from Diana Dors to Ursula Andress performing the most outlandish caricatures you could ever imagine. It's also not the effects nor the story - as both are simple, almost too a fault. So why is this film perfect? Here's why. Firstly the film allows truly great performers to perform. Scenes between Peter Sellers and either Peter O'Toole or Woody Allen highlight just how funny truly gifted comedians can be when a camera is on them. There are parts when obviously the script just said "do something insane and funny" and of course they obliged. Secondly it's the setting. Paris of the sixties is shown as sexy and yet innocent, beautiful women in beautiful locations without the connotations that this brings now. It is a Europe of memory - free and swinging and yet chic and fabulous. O'Toole is charming and ultimately suspends disbelief as a foppish playboy desperately trying to use an psychoanalysis to get over his gift of seducing women so he can settle down with his girlfriend. Allen plays the same guy that I love in "Play it Again Sam" albeit a youthful version and Seller's is at his best. Thirdly it is the nostalgia it brings where comedies had ample slapstick. Seller's is in pure Clouseau mode and the wonderful scenes in his group therapy again poke fun at mental illness in a way that could not be done now. The support from Capucine and Paula Prentiss is wonderful. They are so wonderfully politically incorrect (a nymphomaniac and a serial suicide attempter). They play pure sex-objects that are never pure sex objects (if that contradiction makes sense) and deliver and heighten the comedy of the movie. This film is perfect because it could never be made again now. It is a piece of perfect art of a happier time delivered to us by funny great actors. Enjoy it for what it is.

Although this film never received high critical acclaim (at least as far as I know), I still consider it a pop-culture classic of sorts. I admit, the film's first release was way before my time (I first saw movie on TV in mid-70's), but it has become one of my all-time favorites... and I'm not sure why - maybe because of it's romantic charm and somewhat surreal sequences. And it does mirror the drastic upheaval in morals during that period. Of course, the characters are what make this film what it is - Woody Allen, Peter Sellers, Peter O'Toule, etc. And, it's certainly one of those truly "feel-good" movies with a happy ending. Nevertheless, I'm sure fans will agree with some of my opinions...

Michael James (Peter O'Toole) loves the ladies.The problem is his fiancée Carole Werner (Romy Schneider) and the difficulty of staying faithful.But cheating is too easy when there are dozens of women around you all the time.So he tries to seek help from this shrink, Dr.Fritz Fassbender (Peter Sellers) who's a little eccentric.You can't get too much help from Dr.Fassbender since he's busy stalking his patient Renée Lefebvre (Capucine).Eventually Renée falls for Michael.And there's also this little man called Victor Shakapopulis (Woody Allen) who's in his dream job.He's the un-dresser for strippers.Poor Victor! What's New Pussycat (1965) was Woody Allen's debut in the movie world.He's behind the screenplay.He could do it then and he can do it now.Great writing and acting that's so typical to Woody.It was directed by Clive Donner and partially by Richard Talmadge.The legendary title song was made by Burt Bacharach and Hal David.It's sung by the one and only Tom Jones.Peter O'Toole is fantastic in the lead.It was hilarious to see him as a schoolboy in the flashback sequence.Peter Sellers is hilarious as always.This time with an accent.Richard Burton appears as Man in Strip Club.And let's not forget all those lovely ladies.I mean, Romy Schneider and Capucine, with Paula Prentiss (Liz) and Ursula Andress (Rita).I found a VHS version of this movie yesterday so I decided to buy it for 1 euro.The movie is highly sexual and therefore not for kiddies.It has got a lot of horny men and busty women.In other words all the things a good movie needs.

Written by Woody Allen, "What's New Pussycat" is emblematic of the sexual behavior of the middle 1960s, a sample of op and pop art designs, and a blend of cinematic influences, from Lubitsch to Fellini (including not only a parody of the harem scene from "8 1/2" but also an actress from that film, Eddra Gale, as Sellers' wife, Anna Fassbender). Not as successful as it could have been (although it was a financial hit), the film is actually more noise than Lubitsch and more pastiche than Fellini, due mainly to Allen's typical patchy early scripts. The cast is more than capable, but you often feel Peter O'Toole and Peter Sellers are struggling with their parts, that Romy Schneider's role is more inclined to domesticity than to the 1960s changing mores, and that Ursula Andress is only part of the exotic décor. But Capucine and most of all Paula Prentiss (wearing mod clothes specially designed for her) are very funny, Capucine as Renee Lefebvre, a nymphomaniac who dominates her husband (and everybody, with a whistle), and Prentiss as Liz Bien, a poetess turned stripteaser with suicidal tendencies. Prentiss is so good here, that I have always wondered why Allen never made another film with her. She seemed like a very good match back in 1965, but they don't even cross a word in the film, although both work in the Crazy Horse Saloon. Maybe the crazy film persona she established in "Pussycat" resulted too outré and weird compared to Allen's New York neurotic with a bag of jokes that are often unfunny (like his attempts at seducing Schneider and Katrin Schaake). Nevertheless, to round up the package for our enjoyment, Burt Bacharach wrote the score and the hit title song; Tom Jones, Dionne Warwick, and Manfred Mann sang in the soundtrack, Richard Burton (as a patron in the Crazy Horse Saloon) and French pop singer Françoise Hardy (as a secretary in the last scene) made uncredited cameos, and animator Richard Williams (two decades before "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?") designed the opening credits.