Pussycat, Pussycat I Love You (1970)

Remember What's New Pussycat? (1965), the madcap, star studded, sex comedy from director Clive Donner, that seemed to embody the new climate of sexual freedom that marked the start of what would become the 'Swinging Sixties'?  In recent years it has become fashionable to run the film down, but I retain a soft spot for it, moreover it was hugely popular at the time of its release.  So popular that it spawned a sequel, of sorts.  Not that most people have ever heard of it - I certainly hadn't until I stumbled across it the other week and finally got to watch this past weekend.  You'd also be hard pressed to recognise it as a sequel, unless you'd seen What's New Pussycat? and recognised that film's titular theme, an instrumental version of which plays several times during the sequel, or recognised some of the plot similarities.  Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You (1970) is what would, nowadays, be called a 'thematic' sequel, exploring the same themes as its progenitors, but without any continuing characters or overt references to its predecessor.  It doesn't share any of the production crew from the earlier film either, although producer Jerry Bresler had co-produced Casino Royale (1967) with Charles K Feldman, who had produced What's New Pussycat?.  Also, some sources claim that Woody Allen, who had written the original screenplay for What's New Pussycat? had a hand in Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You's script, although he has no onscreen credit.  

All of which suggests that, maybe, Pussycat, Pussycat I Love you might have originated as a screen treatment for a direct sequel to the 1965 film, but, thanks to the usual vagaries of film development, ended up emerging five years later as a lower budgeted loose follow-up.  Certainly, some of the main characters seem analogous to those in the first film - Ian McShane's Fred Dobbs, like Peter O'Toole, calls the various women he chases 'Pussycat' because he can't remember their names and Severn Darden's quack therapist is an obvious stand in for the Peter Seller's character - and the initial scenario seems to pick up from that film - at the end of What's New Pussycat? philandering O'Toole finally decides to marry his fiance and here McShane's character is relatively recently married, but dissatisfied with monogamy.  Like What's New Pussycat?, the later film centres around the main character' juggling of his liaisons with various women, in an attempt to keep them all secret from each other, particularly from his wife and his mistress, describing them all to his frustrated therapist, (who is ostensibly giving McShane preventative treatment for possible hair loss).  There is also an underdeveloped sub-plot concerning McShane's recurring dream of being chased by a lustful male gorilla, another involving his wife's involvement with an American film star who wants to buy the rights to McShane's latest play, McShane's pursuit of his maid's niece and the therapist's affair with the maid and his violent conflict with his own wife.  It all culminates in a farcical, slapstick, sequence on the set of a Spaghetti Western.

All of which makes it sound as if Pussycat, Pussycat I Love You is a fast-paced zany comedy in the spirit of its predecessor.  Unfortunately, it isn't.  By the time we get to that film set climax, the film has already long outstayed its welcome.  While it tries to use the same plot techniques of its progenitor, presenting a series of only loosely related scenes, often presented in an anarchic, mildly psychedelic style, director Rod Amateau is no Clive Donner, with these sequences lacking completely the verve and energy of similar scenes in What's New Pussycat?.  Moreover, the performers in this quasi-sequel are simply not charismatic enough to carry this sort of comedy off.  Ian McShane, although possessed of considerable scree presence and a powerful performer in other roles, is entirely miscast, lacking completely the eccentricity and other wordliness that Peter O'Toole brought to the analogous role in the first film.  Likewise, Anna Calder-Marshall as his wife, is no Romy Schneider, despite being a fine actress in her own right, is completely miscast here.  Severn Darden tries hard in what is, essentially, the Peter Sellers role, but is given little to work with, his performance coming over as frantically desperate rather than comedic.  In the film's favour, the Italian locations are very attractive and well shot and the whole Spaghetti Western set shenanigans at the end provide an interesting insight for fans of the genre.  

Other than that, Pussycat, Pussycat I Love You is something of a damp squib, far too slowly paced and clumsily plotted, not to mention far too coy, to work as a sex comedy in its own right and too constrained, predictable and weakly cast to work as a sequel to What's New Pussycat?, lacking that film's energy, raucousness and air of absurdity.  Perhaps its biggest problem is that it is simply a film out of its time, a last desperate attempt to cash in on the swinging sixties, free love bandwagon which, by the time the it was released, had well and truly run out of gas.  Rod Amateau would have another stab at a 'swinging' sex comedy the following year, with The Statue (1971), in which David Niven find that his wife's nude sculpture o him has someone else's genitals and spends the film trying to find out who they belong to - with decidedly non-hilarious consequences. It's a;most as painful to watch as Pussycat, Pussycat I Love You.