During the 1960s, there was a flurry of all-star comedy films that tried too hard to be zany. “What’s New, Pussycat?” stands out in this genre for its freewheeling approach to sex – and while it often fails to maintain its frenetic pace, it has more than a few redeeming features to keep the viewer entertained.
Peter O’Toole is the center of the story as a Paris-based fashion magazine editor who keeps finding himself the object of obsession by incredibly beautiful women – a situation that displeases his impatient girlfriend (Romy Schneider), who is concerns that her hopes for a married life will not happen with her easily distracted lover. He seeks the help of a demented psychoanalyst (Peter Sellers), but the silly shrink wants to decipher his patient’s ability to attract women.
“What’s New, Pussycat?” was the first screenplay written by Woody Allen, who turns up as O’Toole’s nebbish sidekick. Allen later disowned the script, claiming it was heavily altered – although one can easily detect Allen’s touch in a great deal of the dialogue and some inventive sight gags. Sellers reportedly rewrote much of his dialogue, and he tends to be the film’s weakest link – he tries much too hard to be outrageous with his patently bogus Viennese accent and Richard III-style hairdo, and some of his scenes become grating. (Allen reportedly wanted Groucho Marx for that role, which would have been curious but interesting since the legendary comic was past his prime by this time.)
The film also has a lame chase climax with the cast evading the police in go-karts – the heavy-handed slapstick feels like it was inserted from another movie.
Still, “What’s New Pussycat?” has a lot to offer. The Burt Bacharach score, particularly the bombastic title tune sung by Tom Jones, is classic, and O’Toole clearly enjoyed showing off his lowbrow comic chops after starring in a series of prestige epics. Schneider is joined by Capucine, Paula Prentiss and Ursula Andress as the film’s most decorative attractions, although the funniest woman on the screen is zaftig Eddra Gale as Sellers’ Wagnerian opera singer wife (he refers to her as “the creature that ate Europe”).
The film also includes two funny 1960s in-jokes: when O’Toole bumps into an unbilled Richard Burton and offhandedly remarks, “Give my love to what’s-her-name,” and later when Sellers ad-libs that Andress is “a personal friend of James Bond,” which causes the Swedish sex bomb to laugh out loud. Mercifully, director Clive Donner kept Andress’ joyful response to the surprise joke in the film.