Numerootno
A story that's too fascinating to pass by...
Marva
It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
blanche-2
When "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" was on television starring Laurence Olivier, Maureen Stapleton, Natalie Wood, and Robert Wagner, I was working in the office. The next day every guy in the place was swooning over Natalie Wood. She certainly was beautiful.This film was made when she was on top of the world and also dating Arthur Loew, the producer, (and my good friend's stepfather). She plays the eponymous Penelope, the stunning wife of a bank officer (Ian Bannen). Feeling neglected, she robs his bank, disguised as an old lady. She runs into the ladies room and becomes Penelope and walks out with $60,000. Eventually, the detective assigned to the case, Lt. Bixbee (Peter Falk), looking at the robbery film and figures out it's the young woman leaving the bank. She's wearing a yellow Givenchy suit, which she promptly donates to a thrift shop.She sees her psychiatrist (Dick Shawn), who is madly in love with her, and he totally freaks out when he realizes she's telling him the truth -- she's a robber!He convinces her that the suit will be a problem, so she returns to the thrift shop to buy it back.This is typical of '60s comedies -- not laugh out loud material, but featuring some glamour and a flimsy story. It is a good and very capable cast, with funnymen Shawn and Jonathan Winters, Peter Falk, and Ian Bannen as her husband.Sadly this movie failed miserably, and some time later, Wood attempted suicide and didn't make another film for three years. So while you might think having guys drooling all over you, money, success, and a powerful boyfriend are the keys to happiness, in her case, they weren't.
lnoft97
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.
Armand
it is her movie. amusing, nice, with few sparkles and almost seductive.page from an old review, drop from other time. a comedy like many others. without great ambitions, childish and not really inspired but good occasion to rediscover an interesting actress. and that is all. far to be waist of time, it is not memorable. only fun from a period , lesson about love and a young Peter Falk. and the cast is basic sin because suggests too many expectations. in essence, a film for Natalie Wood fans. is it enough ? maybe not. but for a gloomy Sunday, cloudy afternoon , it is a not bad solution. maybe for costumes and jeweleries.
robtday
I saw this movie when I was a kid and thought it was pretty good. As an adult, however, I think it pretty much stinks. Natalie's character is just too much to take -- the writing is very bad. The guy chosen to play her husband shows no chemistry with Natalie whatsoever. Natalie is gorgeous of course and the clothes show she was the original "That Girl." Peter Falk is his usual glib self and with Dick Shawn I thought I was watching It's a Mad Mad Mad World. I've read that Natalie hated this movie and it almost seems to show in her performance. You can tell she and her co-star didn't have much going either; if you check the camera shots closely, it appears as if they shot a lot of their scenes separately. It's pretty sophisticated -- if you're 12 -- otherwise, save this one for when your're sick in bed with a fever.
