A very striking film from director Richard Lester that combines Cassevettes' realism, Kubrick's clinical detachment, and Resnais' fragmented film style. Set against a San Francisco that seems inspired by Felini as well as Antonnioni's BlowUp, Petulia, released the same year as Cassavettes' Faces and Kubrick's 2001, features a terrific performance from George C. Scott whose wry line readings provide some of the best moments in the film. The doctor he plays in Petulia is a younger version of the one he played in The Hospital(71), and Scott's straightforward performance garners sympathy while Christie's Petulia is an annoying kook, or worse, from the get go, and the way she suddenly co-ops the doctor's life is alarming. The only time I was on her side was when she told Wilma to "Get stuffed!". She's more disturbing than charming, and it's hard to believe that the doctor wouldn't be fleeing from her or getting a restraining order. And why Petulia married the privileged, sadistic, homosexual pederast in the first place is really no more explained than she is. Nonetheless, Richard Chamberlain is effectively cast as the husband, Nicolas Roeg's cinematography creates some spectacular imagery, Scott never looked better, Christie when not sabotaged by hairdo and make up is lovely, John Barry's score is very effective, and though some of the editing is pointlessly distracting, it is dazzling, and the background with jaded hippies, giddy nuns, automated hotels, 24 hour supermarkets... is arguably more interesting than the foreground with Petulia & Co. Cinematographer Roeg used subliminal imagery in his films Performance(70) and Walkabout(71) as did John Boorman in Point Blank(67) which like Petulia also used Alcatraz as a location.
