What's New Pussycat?

What's New Pussycat? 1965 United Artists.
Starring: Peter Sellers, Peter O'Toole, Romy Schneider, Capucine, Paula Prentiss, Woody Allen, Ursula Andress
Written by Woody Allen
Music by Burt Bacharach and Hal David
Directors: Clive Donner & Richard Talmadge
Available at Amazon as a single disc, or part of the Peter Sellers MGM Movie Legends Collection.

Michael James (O'Toole) is a notorious womanizer, but he desperately wants to be faithful to his fiancée Carole Werner (Schneider). The problem is, every woman he meets seems to fall in love with him, including a neurotic American (Prentiss), and a parachutist who lands in his car (guest star Andress). His psychoanalyst, Dr. Fassbender (Sellers, in another fantastic performance) cannot help, since he's romantically pursuing one of his patients (Capucine) who also is in love with Michael.

All of the film's main characters check into the same quaint hotel in rural France, unaware of each other's presence, and setting up the proverbial collision course with wackiness.

This film was planned to star Warren Beatty. After Woody Allen was hired to write the script, he started relegating Beatty's character to a secondary role, increasing his own role in the film at Beatty's expense. When the studio found Allen's screenplay much funnier than the original idea, Beatty withdrew from the project; he and Allen haven't worked together since. Also, had Beatty remained in the film, Groucho Marx was scheduled to play Dr. Fassbender. Richard Burton also made a cameo in the movie, asking O'Toole in a bar scene "Don't you know me from someplace?" O'Toole responds "Give my regards to what's her name", referring to he and Burton appearing in the 1964 movie Becket, as well as Burton's marriage to Elizabeth Taylor at the time.

Fun movie. Recommended.