Penelope (1966)

hyped garbage

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

This 1966 comedy is campy, silly, and a bit ridiculous, but on the other hand, it has Natalie Wood, and that rounds it up to an almost passable film - and if you adore her as I do, worth watching, maybe lightly, in the background while reading. She is absolutely beautiful in the role of an irrepressible housewife who turns to robbery because her husband doesn't pay enough attention to her. Jesus, talk about a plot hole right there. :P Peter Falk is good as the detective on her trail, and it was interesting to see Jonathan Winters in a small part as well (he's a sex-crazed professor who chases her around until her clothes rip off and she's left capering about in her underwear … not exactly politically correct).On a more somber note, it's sad to think of the troubles this 5' tall daughter of Russian immigrants had in her life, ultimately leading to her creepy drowning death at the age of 43. She took several years off from acting after making this film which speaks to some of the turmoil she was going through, and it's jarring to understand that in light of just how airy this film is, and how happy she seems to be in it.

Natalie Wood certainly looks spectacularly beautiful in this movie. She wears gorgeous clothes, stunning wigs, great jewels, and an astonishing number of breathtakingly beautiful fur coats. A different dead animal draped around her every 15 minutes! Is this a 'good movie'? I dunno. The plot is dumb, and actually I just watch it with the sound turned down, not even trying to follow the plot, because it is just such wonderful eye candy. Look at the divine Ms. Wood, tripping in high heels and glamorous outfits, down the street of a New York that is no more. Look at the divine Ms. Wood, in her eye-popping New York apartment complete with house boy, being neglected by her busy banker husband. It's like a screwball comedy of the 30's (think the idle rich in their all white mansions full of flowers, getting up to all kinds of funny business) updated to the 60's. And here is something else: this was made in 1966, at the height of the swinging' 60's - the miniskirts, the Beatles, the hippies, Viet Nam - and not a trace of the swinging' 60's can be found. It's all fur coats and jewels and little silk sheath dresses and hats and gloves. Made for and marketed to Natalie Wood fans of course, and people over 30 who turn their noses up at those crass loud young people! Not to mention those filthy hippies! . A whole different, parallel world existing side by side with the younger world. Mad Men ladies who lunch, in expensive Edith Head concoctions. Their day was already past, but you wouldn't know it from this movie.

Serious reviewers keep out, stay away, and spare us the jaded film-jargon-filled evaluations! This movie is about only one thing: FUN! It's a screwball comedy chick flick for men who love Natalie Wood. If the shoe fits, have a ball with this one! (BTW: What DOES it mean when you always forget your shoes?). I could have watched this film all night, over and over. Maybe that nauseates some of you stuff-shirted Scorsese devotees, but you can just take a hike anyway. I love Natalie, and this film is a smörgåsbord of shots and scenes of her just the way we love her. That alone should be enough. She steals every scene, of course; so, where's the downside in that? I know she hated herself in this film, but the real Natalie was something of a bitchy slut, anyway. Most of us are glad that only Bob Wagner had to put up with that Natalie. The rest of us can enjoy her wholeheartedly in this little trinket of a movie!

Natalie Wood, Peter Falk, Dick Shawn a great cast, NYC in the 60's a great location, even great opening credits… so how does this add up to such a boring movie? It is a movie I tried to there were some laughs and some great location shots, but what a bunch of annoying characters, I mean just about all of them. I guess Arthur Hiller was still just getting his feet wet; he did become a great director, and who would cast Ian Bannen as Penolpe's husband even as a straight man he's too much of a bore. As beautiful and sexy Penolpe is hers is the most annoying character of all, the Gracie Allen routine went out with... well Gracice Allen. I see that Hiller was trying to invoke the zaniness of the "screwball comedy" but this just came off as boring. High light - Natalie in her under garments being chased by Jonathan Winters