I first posted this here on March 22, 2006. It's all about the 1966 movie Penelope starring…well, I tell you below who starred in it. For your information, it runs tomorrow (Monday) afternoon on Turner Classic Movies but before you rush to set your TiVo or whatever device you have, read what I wrote about it and then there'll be a follow-up after I quote the old posting…
In 1966, my father and I went to a movie at the Crest Theater, which was on Westwood Boulevard just south of Wilshire. I forget what the movie was but the trailer was for a film called Penelope starring Natalie Wood, Dick Shawn, Peter Falk and Jonathan Winters. I, of course, instantly noticed that it was a reunion of three of the leads from It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. What interested my father was that Jonathan Winters was in it. (He may also have been interested in the scenes in the trailer that had Ms. Wood running around in her underwear. Come to think of it, so was his son. I was fourteen and I was interested in any woman running around in her underwear. If it was Natalie Wood, so much the better. But when you're fourteen, you're not that fussy.)
My father thought Jonathan Winters was the funniest human being on the planet — a not-uncommon opinion, then or now. "We'll have to see that," he said to me. A week or two later, we were back at the Crest seeing that. My recollection is that, underwear scenes aside, neither one of us liked the movie much. You got the feeling that a lot more thought had gone into Natalie Wood's wardrobe — she seemed to go through about ninety-seven outfits in 97 minutes — than into the script.
We especially disliked the paucity of Mr. Winters. Though billed as a star, he was in the film for what seemed like about two minutes. It was probably more than that but I'll bet it wasn't a lot more than that. Four minutes, tops. It was certainly not an appearance commensurate with his billing. His name on the marquee of the Crest was just as large as Natalie's. What's more, about half of his performance was obviously done by a stuntman…and most of it had been in that trailer. If you'd seen the Coming Attractions, you'd pretty much seen Jonathan's contribution to Penelope.
On the way out that evening, my father felt swindled and it wasn't because the movie wasn't very good. It was because he felt it had been misrepresented. A man who I guess was the manager of the Crest said to us at the door, "Hope you'll come back soon," and my father blurted out his dissatisfaction. He pointed to the marquee and said, "We came to see Jonathan Winters. You shouldn't have his name up there if he's only in the movie for three minutes."
Immediately, the manager whipped out four free passes, almost like he'd had them ready for us. "Please accept these with my sincere apologies," he said. Then he turned to an employee and said, "Go get the letters for the front and the ladder. I want to change something." Sure enough, the next day when we happened to drive down Westwood, the name of Jonathan Winters was no longer on the Crest marquee. Dick Shawn's was in its place.
I'm sure this all sounds trivial today but I remember the incident vividly. It was the first time I was ever acutely aware that you ought to speak up when things aren't right…and not just because you might get something (like free passes) out of it. You do it because few things that oughta be fixed ever get fixed if no one says anything.
It is, of course, possible to overdo this. I broke up with one lady friend because she seemed to go through life, finding fault everywhere and demanding that the world be corrected to her liking. It got very tiresome, especially when I found myself fixing things that really didn't need to be fixed, just so she'd stop telling me they did. A lot of people criticize because they like the attention it gives them and the feeling of power to make others jump through hoops to please them. There have been times in my life when my biggest complaint has been people with complaints. Still, it's just as wrong, if not more so, to suffer in silence.
So that's the memory I associate with the movie Penelope, which I haven't seen since '66. In fact, I can't recall ever seeing that it was running on TV or available on home video…but it's on Turner Classic Movies this Friday evening and I'm setting a TiVo. This is not a recommendation that you do likewise since I barely remember anything about it except for how quickly Jonathan Winters disappeared and that I didn't like anything except Ms. Wood's undies. Then again, how bad can a movie with Dick Shawn, Peter Falk and (briefly) Jonathan Winters be? Plus, it also has Lou Jacobi and Carl Ballantine…so right there, you have five of my favorite comic actors.
Still, tape or TiVo it at your own risk, especially if you want to see what Ms. Wood is and isn't wearing in it. I'm just watching to see if it's any better than I remember…and also, I want to run a stopwatch on Jonathan Winters's screen time. I have the feeling you could use it to time a boiled egg.
Okay, this is me in the present-day again. Three days later, I posted this follow-up…
The other day here, I noted that I would soon be watching the 1966 movie Penelope for the first time since 1966. I said that I remembered it not being very good and that my father and I felt cheated because Jonathan Winters, though billed among its stars, was only on the screen for — and I quote myself: "…what seemed like about two minutes. It was probably more than that but I'll bet it wasn't a lot more than that. Four minutes, tops."
I have now seen Penelope for the first time in forty years. By an odd coincidence, I won't be watching this movie again for another forty years. What a non-entertaining piece of celluloid. The single interesting thing about it is Peter Falk, playing a cop and apparently warming up to play Lt. Columbo many years later.
As it turns out, I was wrong about the length of the appearance of Jonathan Winters in the film. Leonard Maltin says in his indispensable Leonard Maltin's 2006 Movie Guide that Winters is on screen "less than three minutes." That's correct but Leonard, you may want to change that line in your next edition. In fact, I insist upon it. The actual, measured-by-a-stopwatch length of time from when we first see Jonathan Winters to when we last see Jonathan Winters is one minute and thirty-one seconds. Exactly.
If by some chance you doubt me — if you can't believe a major motion picture studio would give star billing to someone who was only in a movie for 91 seconds, watch it tomorrow afternoon on Turner Classic Movies. Or if you don't want to wait, get out whatever watch or app you time things with and time the scene in this. This clip contains every moment of the movie in which Jonathan Winters appears. This is apparently sped slightly from when it was on TCM because in here, it comes out to 87 seconds.
And while you're at it, you might consider how a scene of a college professor trying to rape one of his students — even a student who clearly is way over college age — somehow isn't quite as funny as it was in 1966. Not that it was a laugh riot then…