Petulia *** (1968, Julie Christie, George C Scott, Richard Chamberlain, Shirley Knight, Pippa Scott) – Classic Movie Review 3,537

Richard Lester takes us back to the San Francisco-style kookie Swinging Sixties era, in the interesting but shaky 1968 romantic drama film Petulia. Julie Christie stars as the Arch Kook Petulia, a zany young British socialite.

Director Richard Lester takes us back to the San Francisco-style kookie Swinging Sixties era, in this interesting but shaky 1968 romantic drama. There’s no doubt that Petulia is peculiar. It’s the kind of movie that sends careers into a downward spiral, even in the Sixties.

Julie Christie stars as the Arch Kook Petulia, a zany British young woman socialite, unhappily married for six months to an anaemic husband, naval engineer David Danner (Richard Chamberlain). Seeing him at a hospital fund-raiser, Petulia is determined to have a crazy fling with dominating older surgeon Dr Archie Bollen (George C Scott), who is soon to be divorced from his wife of ten years Polo (Shirley Knight). Petulia is relentless in her pursuit of Archie – even as Archie dates May (Pippa Scott).

As usual, Lester films with his accustomed boundless energy, but this time the elements don’t quite come together. This forgotten movie is worth a look, though, for the performances, Nicolas Roeg’s cinematography, the John Barry score, and the ambitions of the story. Lawrence B Marcus and Barbara Turner co-operate on the screenplay, adapted from John Haase’s novel, Me and the Arch Kook Petulia.

Its a sign of their class as actors that Christie manages a touching sadness behind the kookiness, Scott a surprising warmth behind the toughness.

It is the film debut of Ellen Geer, playing a nun, and of Austin Pendleton (intern).

Barbara Turner, the screenwriter who worked on Petulia (1968) and Georgia (1995), The Company (2003), Pollock (2000) and Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012) died on April 5 2016, in Los Angeles, aged 78. She was the mother of actress Jennifer Jason Leigh.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3,537

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/