What's New, Pussycat (1965)

[roger_that]

Very strange movie, the first scripted by Woody Allen, who plays a role in it (that he obviously wrote for himself), inspired and intended as a vehicle for the womanizing Warren Beatty, who recited the title to young starlets (whose names he couldn't keep straight, so he just called them "pussycat"). Peter O'Toole stepped in after Beatty dropped out, and he plays a compulsive womanizer who is trying to reform himself by consulting a (loopy) psychiatrist to help him curb his sexual appetites and allow him to become a faithful husband to the woman he intends to marry. Sexual hijinx, naturally, recur.

The plot makes very little sense, but I did notice that it follows very loosely the plot (single man consults a psychiatrist to deal with his oppressive lusts) of Portnoy's Complaint. Probably a coincidence, in that the early chapters of Roth's novel hadn't yet started to reach print (I think the first chapters were published in 1966 or '67) but it is a sign of the times that shrinks and lust and sexual adventures were beginning to enter the cultural spotlight.

A very poor movie, all in all.

[whippoorwill]

But what a cute song!