Penelope

Dir: Arthur Hiller

1966

**

I adore Natalie Wood – always have – and even her not so great films have a special place in my heart…but Penelope’s charm is very limited. Directed by the great Arthur Hiller, 1966’s Penelope also features some others of my all time favorites including Peter Falk, Jonathan Winters, and Dick Shawn (I’m a huge It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World fan). It’s a tricky film to track down these days as it’s release on DVD and VHS was very limited and I confess it is a film that I’ve not long been aware of. When I learned that there was a comedy featuring Wood, Winters, Falk and Shawn that I was unaware of I nearly exploded with excitement. Arthur Hiller was an added bonus and the synopsis was irresistible. Natalie Wood plays Penelope Elcott, the wife of wealthy banker James Elcott (Ian Bannen). We first encounter Penelope dressed as an old woman as she is robbing her husbands bank at gunpoint – on the first day of its opening. While the police, including Lieutenant Horatio Bixbee (Peter Falk), rush to get to the bank, Penelope escapes in a red wig and yellow suit. She donates some of the stolen money to a Salvation Army worker and donates the suit to a second-hand thrift shop. Con artists Sabada (Lila Kedrova) and Ducky (Lou Jacobi) immediately recognize the suit as an original designer outfit from Paris, and purchase it for a mere $7. Penelope then visits her psychiatrist, Gregory (Dick Shawn), and tells him all about her criminal activities. Together they explore Penelope’s Kleptomania through a series of flashbacks – most of which also include how she met her husband. She says it began in college, when a professor (Jonathan Winters) lured her into his laboratory where he began his attempt to rape her, but she escaped, leaving her dress ripped off in the process. During the chase, she stole a diamond set watch of the Professor's. She next stole on her wedding day. When she caught her maid of honor Mildred Halliday (Norma Crane) kissing James, she swiped Mildred's earrings and necklace. Gregory suggests she is stealing to attract attention from her distant husband. When a young woman, Honeysuckle Rose, is accused of being the thief, Penelope knows she must come clean so that the innocent women isn’t sentenced. Gregory wants her to return the stolen money to the bank, and also helps her return it via an incident whereby Penelope nearly steals a Rembrandt from the local art gallery. Penelope confesses and tries to clear the innocent Honeysuckle, but Horatio the cop and husband James do not believe her. Ducky and Sabada pay a visit, trying to blackmail her, but Penelope foils their blackmail attempt. Penelope then decides to host a dinner party, having stolen from all the invited guests. She tries to return the stolen items, but all claim that they have never seen them before. Penelope, confused and frightened, runs away. She again robs James' bank, but unlike the previous time, she is crying. James begs Horatio to find her. Penelope herself goes to Horatio with the stolen money, but the cop knows James would not press charges against his own wife. Gregory explains the dinner guests denied recognizing the stolen items because they would lose the fraudulently inflated insurance claims they collected. Gregory breaks down and begs Penelope to run away with him. She refuses, telling him she is cured. James realizes that he has neglected Penelope and starts seeing her face everywhere he turns. He goes to the psychiatrist's office, where James and Penelope happily reunite. Everyone involved is talented but the script and delivery is weak. It isn’t quite fair to say the film is dated, as the film was rejected upon its initial release, many agreeing that it missed the mark in pretty much everything it tried to achieve. After the film was released, Natalie Wood bought herself out of her Warner Bros. contract for $175,000, and fired her staff of agents, managers and lawyers. She didn't make another film for another three years. I do love older films of this nature and I forgive their ridiculousness because they are generally fun, innocent, good natured and the best kinds of silly but Penelope is so mis-judged that it made me incredibly sad. The early scene of Jonathan Winters stripping Natalie Wood to her underwear and then trying to rape her in a ‘comedy’ fashion is awful now and it was awful then. The comedy is cartoonish and falls flat with every joke. The best thing about the film is Natalie Wood, but then watching her wonderful performance – knowing it was wasted energy – has a tragic element to it that makes it hard to fully enjoy. Dick Shawn doesn’t seem allowed to really make the most of his character either, but Ian Bannen is good and Peter Falk is great. The best thing to come out of the film is that Peter Falk’s performance here was clearly the inspiration for Columbo, as the characters are pretty much exactly the same. I have no idea why it didn’t quite work but these are actors who I would happily watch again and again, even if it means watching them in a disappointing film such as this.