1/18/07: Petulia (1968)This year will mark the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love, and you can bet we’ll be getting a lot of mileage out of that. For now, though, it’s a good idea to get a 1968 classic out of the way. Actually, a lot of films similar to
Petulia will be celebrating their 39th anniversary this year. We’re now all familiar with the tired plot about the crazy young gal who liberates the old stuffed shirt.
Petulia, however, was directed by Richard Lester, who used the decade’s own goofiness to explain everything wrong with the Age of Aquarius. George C. Scott is Archie Bollen, a newly divorced surgeon who’s been suckered into becoming part of social change. Archie’s not even sure why he abandoned his family, and the wife has already replaced him with a real adult who’s great with the kids.
Meanwhile, Archie gets stuck with Julie Christie as the title character. She’s a genuine free spirit of the ’60s, and Archie is originally smart enough to treat her with disdain. The married Petulia throws herself at him during a party, then abruptly changes her mind about consummating the fling. In a typically obnoxious and cryptic manner, Petulia still requires a parting comment:
“I’m going to marry you, Archie.”
Archie rolls his eyes: “It’s the Pepsi generation!”
It’s also San Francisco ’67, so Archie is surrounded by these kinds of idiots. His new world is full of crass stoned hippies making snide comments about peace and love. Archie’s the only useful person around. That’s probably why Petulia seeks him out as some sort of savior. But she’s just too kooky for her own good, and she needs the security of her abusive, rich, and young-modern husband.
(We also know he’s a repressed homosexual, since he’s Richard Chamberlain in a turtleneck.)
The movie pretty much just follows Petulia around as she wastes Archie’s time in her sprint to self-destruction. Little does she know that the film is also chronicling Archie’s long walk back to adulthood. At the end, Petulia shows up pregnant at Archie’s hospital. They discuss running off together in an ambulance. She asks him to arrange it. Archie picks up the phone and then remembers that he’s dealing with Petulia.
He puts the phone back on the hook. Petulia looks at Archie. “When I lay dying,” she says, “you won’t even cross my mind.”
Then there’s some kind of lame joke, but Petulia seems to be telling the absolute truth. No experienced romantic would think otherwise. Petulia spawned so many like-minded children—and now grandchildren—that plenty of men and women have endured their own frame-by-frame remakes of the film’s sad lack of climax.
That’s why we didn’t bring up any kind of spoiler warning. Any audience today will see what Archie saw coming. The message of
Petulia was that times were changing and it was a new America. The subtext was that the new America was marching out of San Francisco on a childish crusade.
Petulia seemed dated by 1974. Not so much now.
Make it your own: Available
on DVD with some interesting extras—but it’s probably telling that Lester’s work on
Superman II gets paid a lot more attention nowadays.
