Penelope (1966)

User Rating:

5.9/10   

Director:

Arthur Hiller

Writers:

Howard Fast (novel)
George Wells (screenplay)

Release Date:

10 November 1966 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Crime

Tagline:

The worlds most beautiful bank-robber

Plot:

Comedy about a flighty, bored, kleptomaniac wife of a banker who robs her husband's bank of $60,000.

Plot Keywords:

Disguise | Marriage | Psychiatrist | Banker | Kleptomania

Cast

Natalie Wood	...	Penelope Elcott
Ian Bannen	...	James B. Elcott
Dick Shawn	...	Dr. Gregory Mannix
Peter Falk	...	Lieutenant Horatio Bixbee
Jonathan Winters	...	Professor Klobb
Lila Kedrova	...	Princess Sadaba
Lou Jacobi	...	Ducky
Norma Crane	...	Mildred Halliday
Arthur Malet	...	Salvation Army Major Higgins
Jerome Cowan	...	Bank manager
Arlene Golonka	...	Honeysuckle Rose
Amzie Strickland	...	Miss Serena
Bill Gunn	...	Sergeant Rothschild
Carl Ballantine	...	Boom Boom
Iggie Wolfington	...	Store Owner

Runtime:

97 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Company:

Euterpe

Trivia:

There seems to be a scene cut from the movie, perhaps a fantasy sequence. Some lobby cards show Natalie Wood and her husband in the film in their beds. The husband looks bored and uninterested in Natalie. In others from the same scene he reads a newspaper or has a boardroom meeting while Natalie sits in bed looking gorgeous.

Goofs:

Factual errors: When Penelope is robbing the bank, she asks for "those nice, new stacks of $500 bills." She also gets "a handful" of $1000 bills. Production of these denominations stopped during World War II, so there wouldn't have been any new ones. They were intended for payment transfers between banks, so they would not have been available from a bank teller.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The King of the Duplicators (1968)

Soundtrack:

Penelope

an amazing witness of New York as Fun City

I was 16 when this movie came out and completely overlooked it. I'm afraid I was more into the new wave at the Paris than this kind of thing at the mall.

I saw it 30 years later and was astounded by the beautiful and to my eye authentic documentation of New York City at a moment of awesome and perishable beauty--a phrase that describes equally well the amazing Natalie Wood. The screenplay is a failed attempt at a 60s 'modern' screwball comedy, but the film work and editing are wonderful, and the camera has loved very few people with the intensity it loves Natalie Wood who glows in the wonderful 60s fashions.