THE OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT

US, 1970, 95 minutes, Colour.
George Segal, Barbra Streisand, Robert Klein.
Directed by Herbert Ross.

The Owl and the Pussycat was a very successful stage comedy. Here it is transferred to the wide screen under the direction of Herbert Ross, a choreographer and director, who was responsible for such films as Goodbye Mr Chips, Funny lady, The Sunshine Boys and the Seven Per Cent Solution. He has a good hand with comedy, but he is aided especially by his stars. Barbara Streisand in a non-singing role is superb and George Segal often an underrated comedian, well matches her.

It is a comedy about sex which satisfies an adult audiences. The film ends as a moral fable, which means that the entertainment and the farcical situations as well as the characterisation, have a point to make about true relationships and not hiding from each other behind our masks.

1. An enjoyable and entertaining film? The sex comedy tradition of American films? The screwball comedies of the thirties and forties? The more explicit comedies of the sixties and seventies? This film and its style echoing the sixties and seventies? Tone, explicitness, moralising ending?

2. The film as a vehicle for its stars and their particular styles? How well did they work together? Comedy flair, dramatic skills? giving depth to the slight story?

3. The choice of Panavision photography for such a small scale story? Interiors, New York? Editing and pace? The score and the Blood, Sweat and Tears musical style?

4. The title and the overtones of nursery, innocence? The contrast with the knowing tone of the film? The battle of the sexes, male/female relationships, the intellectual versus the sensual? The cat stalking the bird? The bird as the prey for the cat?

5. The structure of the film: half of the film going into the first night and the interaction of Doris and Felix? The balancing of the focus on their lives and failures? Bringing them together and the final resolution? The laughter, farcical situations, the masks, the realities, taking off the masks?

6. The basic farcical situation as a means of introducing the characters, their background, styles? The elaborate details and comedy from the farcical situations? The implications in each character? The basis for the sex comedy? The build-up to the relationship? The love/hate, the battle? The differences in life style? Doris and her ignorance, promiscuity, sensuality, good humour? Felix and his primness, reserve, learning?

7. Barbra Streisand's portrayal of Doris? her background, names, various jobs, the pornographic movie, television commercials, taking money from clients, her moral outlook, all her particular idiosyncrasies? An American comic woman?

8. Felix as failed writer, his looking at Doris through the binoculars, his encounter with the landlord, their reaction to Doris, the mutual insults, her threat to his masculinity, his having to cope, the misunderstandings? The comic American man?

9. The interaction in the apartment, Felix being locked out, Doris, her hyper-energy, wanting to go to sleep, the hiccups, Felix frightening her? Their being sent out of the apartment? Barney and his girl friend and their reaction? Doris and Felix and talk, revelation of character, attitudes, interaction? The comic turn with the fish tank as a television? The sexual encounter and the effect on each?

10. Love/hate expressions? The vigour of the fights? The symbolism of Felix reading the story and the discussion about the sun spitting, the use of the word 'enervating'?

11. Felix in the bookshop and his ordinariness at work, tiredness? the film? The encounter with Eleanor at the shop? Felix looking at the men staring at the woman's legs? The contrast with Doris seeing the men looking at the sport on television instead of her? The sleazy go-go place? Her being sacked? The encounter with the shop manager and her flushing his pants down the toilet? The parallelling of the ordinariness and failure of their lives?

12. Felix hurrying to meet Doris? Their talk? his curiosity (sexual Disneyland)? The going to the fiance's home, the talk, lovemaking, the bath? The rapport between the two? Their giving in to each other and removing some of the masks? The fiancee and her discovery of them in the bath? her father as the man with the eggs?

13. The finale in the park, the vigour of the fight, Felix humiliating Doris, treating her as a dog and pet, his humbling himself and kissing her hand and her hitting him? The new introductions, the revelation of his true name, their both telling the truth to each other and introducing themselves? with the postscript about Doris's television commercial and the possibility of their loving one another?

14. Specific comic routines: Felix frightening Doris, the television act, the neighbours in the corridor, the visit to Cycle Slutz, Barney and his reaction, the bath? The humour of the dialogue?

15. The film as an adult nursery rhyme fable? the two different types, their complementarity, each needing the other, the pretences, the possibility of admitting the truth, self-giving, unmasking? The moral tone of the ending?