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What's New Pussycat?
original movie poster
Directed by	Clive Donner
Produced by	Charles K. Feldman
Written by	Woody Allen
Starring	Peter Sellers Peter O'Toole Romy Schneider Capucine Paula Prentiss Ursula Andress
Music by	Burt Bacharach
Cinematography	Jean Badal
Editing by	Fergus McDonell
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date(s)	1965
Running time	108 min.
Country	UK / U.S.A.
Language	English French
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

What's New Pussycat? is a 1965 film directed by Clive Donner and starring Peter Sellers, Peter O'Toole, Romy Schneider, Capucine and Ursula Andress. It was Woody Allen's film debut, as well as his first produced script. The title theme of the film was written by Burt Bacharach and sung by Tom Jones.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Starring 3 Production 4 Trivia 5 References 6 External links

Notorious womanizer Michael James (O'Toole) desperately wants to be faithful to his fiancée Carole Werner (Schneider), but runs into serious problems since every woman he meets seems to fall in love with him. His psychoanalyst, Dr. Fassbender (Sellers), cannot help him either since he's busy stalking one of his patients (Capucine) who in turn longs for Michael. A catastrophe appears on the horizon as all the characters check into the Chateau Chantelle hotel for the weekend not knowing of each other's presence.

• Peter Sellers — Dr. Fritz Fassbender
• Peter O'Toole — Michael James
• Romy Schneider — Carole Werner
• Capucine — Renée Lefebvre
• Paula Prentiss — Liz Bien
• Woody Allen — Victor Shakapopulis
• Ursula Andress — Rita
• Michel Subor — Philippe
• Eddra Gale — Anna Fassbender (as Edra Gale)
• Richard Burton — Man in Strip Club
• Katrin Schaake — Jacqueline
• Eléonore Hirt — Mrs. Sylvia Werner
• Jean Parédès — Marcel
• Jacques Balutin — Etienne
• Jess Hahn — Mr. Werner
• Howard Vernon — Doctor
• Françoise Hardy — Mayor's assistant, scribe

The film was originally slated to have starred Warren Beatty, and was in fact a starring vehicle for him. The very title was Beatty's usual way of answering the telephone at that time, and the entire project was supposed to be "his".

However, upon being hired to write the screenplay, Woody Allen began relegating Beatty's character to a secondary role, increasing his own at Beatty's expense. This led to tension between Beatty and the studio, especially as the screenplay Allen was delivering was considered to be much funnier than the original idea.

Eventually, the then-superstar Beatty was forced off his own project by the then-little known Allen.

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• American film critics condemned the film as decadent and immoral.^{[citation needed]}

• Warren Beatty was originally to have played the part of Michael with Groucho Marx as Dr Fassbender. All of Michael's girlfriends were to have been played by the same actress. Beatty fell out with producer Charles K. Feldman over Woody Allen's script and quit.

• Because of their feuding during pre-production on the film, Woody Allen and Warren Beatty never worked together again. However, both had long term and significant relationships with the same woman, Diane Keaton, albeit at different times.

• Capucine played Renée Lefebvre; in real life, her name was Germaine Lefebvre.

• There is an apocryphal story that, when Woody Allen turned in his script to Charles Feldman, it did not have a title. According to this legend, the project stayed nameless until one day Feldman overheard Warren Beatty, who was living at his Beverly Hills mansion, talking to one of the hundreds of gorgeous women he was seeing at the time. His usual greeting of "What's new, pussycat?" was heard by Feldman who screamed out "title!" However, the title had been suggested by Beatty (who indeed used it as a greeting to women on the phone) from the moment the project was originally pitched to Feldman and Universal.

• The Chase Scene Music was later used for a Cleveland late-night movie show, Big Chuck and Little John.

The Times, 2 September 1965 and 6 September 1966

• What's New Pussycat? at the Internet Movie Database