What's New Pussycat

This film is so sixties you can't believe it, from its eye-popping colours to the sight of Peter O'Toole and pals dancing OTT to Manfred Mann's 'Little Red Book'. O'Toole plays Michael James, a sex-mad fashion magazine editor who takes his troubles to a sex-mad psychiatrist (the amusingly bats Peter Sellers, in a Richard III wig and tight costumes), and shares neuroses with his weedy friend Woody Allen (who scripted this hit and miss movie).

There are some excellent bits - Romy Schneider, as Michael's fiancée and number one girlfriend, Carole, runs a language class which pitches in on a quarrel she has with him ('Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye' - 'You're all parrots!); Michael has nightmares where Sellers appears as, yup, Richard III, and all his girlfriends converge on him like a swarm of ants; Sellers plans a Viking funeral suicide (swathed in the Union Jack) but is interrupted by Allen dining al fresco for his birthday; O'Toole assists Sellers in a Cyrano de Bergerac style wooing; and there is frentic chase involving go-karts towards the end of the film. All this and the opera-shrilling psychiatrist's wife. And a lot of potted plants.

Fun food for the eyes really and a no-brainer, but 'What's New Pussycat?' is fun, off-the-wall, and requires no real attention span. O'Toole was certainly right for the part and of course, there is always Tom Jones' famous theme song and the cartoon credits with a chorus line of pussycats ...