Not yet 30, but with her career slipping (only one film of consequence ahead of her*), Natalie Wood couldn’t have been happy with the scripts on offer at the time. Nor this cast & crew other than D.P. Harry Stradling, too many near novices on a major studio production. But with Hollywood facing collapse and, as yet, no rebirth on the horizon, she grabbed this meager comedy that sees her playing a goofy, but glamorous kleptomaniac who’s trying to rejigger interest from workaholic bank executive husband Ian Bannen. (His first & last conventional Hollywood lead.) Maybe she’ll get his attention by robbing his new flagship bank? That’s about it for plot, the rest is comic fashion show (did Howard Fast really co-write this?), complications coming via love-addled shrink Dick Shawn (fey & reasonably funny) and love-addled police investigator Peter Falk (in something of a trial run for Columbo two years off). But don’t give up, what catches the eye is more than usual NYC location work (the city looking great in 1966, late ‘60s decline yet to appear; one long scene played in the MoMA Sculpture Garden a treat), plus the chemistry between Falk & Wood so obvious, you wonder why no one did anything with it. But the oddest part of the film is that everyone involved, including faceless director Arthur Hiller, seems to think they’ve got another BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S/’61 in here. With borrowed style, borrowed party scenes, borrowed kooks, even a Givenchy outfit as a major clue to the crime. Maybe they borrowed it from #1 Givenchy client Audrey Hepburn? And maybe that’s why they got ‘Johnny’ Williams to write a song for Natalie to sing. ‘Moon River’ it ain’t.
DOUBLE-BILL: *That would be BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE/’69.
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