Petulia
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VHS Movie Reviews of Petulia
Movie Review: It's About Damn Time!-Petulia on DVD: AT LAST!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I was looking through Warner Brothers' list of upcoming DVD movies two weeks ago and when I scrolled it down, I was absolutely floored when I saw that the 60's classic "Petulia" is coming to DVD in June (I own it on VHS as well as the soundtrack by John Barry). When that happened I pounded my fist on the chair and said 'They're finally releasing it!' So much so that I pre-ordered it and it's going to be coming to my doorstep when it's released! I think this is great because this movie can now reach a new audience and for those that are curious of what was going on in the late-60's because Petulia has been a forgotten classic. It may not be when it's released in a month and a half. Before I leave here's some other 60's classics that needs to be released (or re-released in special editions):
Warner Brothers
HARPER with Paul Newman
A BIG HAND FOR THE LITTLE LADY with Henry Fonda and Joanne Woodard
ANY WEDNESDAY with Jane Fonda (check out her hair; and you thought her do in KLUTE was the [...] of jokes!) and Jason Robards
Other Notworthties
ISADORA with Vanessa Redgrave (and in its original 168 minute version)
and Special Editions of ALFIE and BARBARELLA
Well that is it.
Movie Review: The great underrated 60's classic
Summary: 5 Stars
PETULIA is one of my all time favorites. Incredibly beautiful, haunting, humorous and, finally, heartbreaking mosaic story of people at a time of seismic cultural shifts in america. One of the last adult relationship dramas made by Hollywood. Influenced by all that was happening in European and american film at the time , stylistically, it is a breathtaking feast of filmmaking. I saw it in college, in Dayton, Ohio, and I've never forgotten it. I've seen it, maybe 20 times, and have introduced it to many, many friends. I met the producer, Raymond Wagner, twice at PETULIA screenings at the L.A. County Museum and at the American Cinematheque, and he said that George C. Scott regarded his performanced in it as his personal favorite. Why does this film touch people in such a unique way? I've tracked down most of the locations in San francisco when i used to live there. Dr. Bolen's modern apartment location is still there on the Filbert steps beneath Coit Tower.Movie Review: MY ALL TIME FAVORITE
Summary: 5 Stars
As of April 4, 2006 this is the 16th "Petulia" review posted on Amazon. I agree with all of the 5 star comments.
The reasons for my love of this film have never been clear to me. The critiques, (posted here), clarify many of the film making values that resulted in a great movie. But, there is something deeper in the story that touches something in my experience of life. That has caused me to view it at least 25 times. And, the final "Labor" scenes always bring a lump to my throat.
It msy not be for every one. But, try it, and you may love it too.
I have wondered, over the years why the DVD has been so long in coming .
Finally, I had the privilege of talking to Shirley Knight, last year. Of course, "Petulia" was topic one, for me. She knew immediately, that the "cookie" scene was a favorite.
Movie Review: The awful process of reworking the life!
Summary: 5 Stars
Petulia is a brave film. It is not a picture easy to swallow, because it is a demolishing portrait of moral human beings in a decadent world.
Every one of these depicted characters has something to pay, because all of them are incapable to realize his or her potential, in search of the total fulfillment of an ethic compromise trying to satisfy the whole expectations of those people whom they love.
This awful disorientation process obeys to a sorrowful and probably unconscious self destructive impulse. Lester would seem to underline the terrible ethic abyss between the undeniable advances of all order in an opulent society and a hunger soul, lack of communication, affection and love.
Petulia represents the new order. She wants to live several lives in just one; Oliver is his personal hobby, she intends desperately to find the perfect man, and through this self convincing, tries to join the pieces of a messy puzzle, with the best of both men. There is self indulgence, compassion and a serious stage of ambitioned change but without risking. That state of mind only can lead to assume the life as impersonal experience, because you are not able to face your own demons. She possesses the force enough to change of mind but not the necessary courage to give the final leap. That fact is underlined dramatically in the last lines of the film, when she pronounces the name Archie before falling asleep. Somehow you can realize certain similitude with Rosebud, admitting the sleep is a brief evasion, where the happiness in case of being absent, you have to invent it by yourself through the most common of devices; the conformism, that represents a symbol of inaction or renounce.
The rest of the characters are subject to life 's fluctuations, and this brief encounter of vanished illusions comes nowhere but it simply transform.
But finally the time has come for this film to rescue it and conferring its genuine value as one of the most mature films of the American Cinema in any age, proving this way Ingmar Bergman concerns through his relevant career do not seem to be so distant from this border of the Atlantic. This is undeniably Mark Lester ` major artistic stature film ever made!
So consider this film as well The swimmer( see my review about it) as the best exponents of the Author Cinema in 1968. Go for both of them.
Movie Review: Barbara Turner's Break-Thru Screenplay
Summary: 5 Stars
I saw PETULIA years ago & although I remembered liking it very much, I don't really think I "got it" before. But I recently saw it again & this time it really hit home. I got it for background research because I just wrote up an interview with screenwriter Barbara Turner about her new film THE COMPANY. (For all the talk about Richard Lester in this thread, no one's mentioned Turner's contribution as if, what -- it wrote itself?) It's no wonder Pauline Kael didn't like it. Great as she was in many ways, Kael was not particularly sympathetic to women's issues (or women filmmakers for that matter), so her review seems to miss the central point: Petulia is a battered woman trapped for economic & social reasons in a brutal marriage. Amazing stuff for 1968! You can read my interview with Turner on www.films42.com if you're interested. Among other things you'll learn that Robert Altman was originally supposed to direct PETULIA. Imagine that!