Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		5.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

Penelope Blu-ray Movie Review

Only her psychiatrist knows...

Reviewed by Randy Miller III January 11, 2020

Arthur Hiller's Penelope is a lightweight caper and screwball comedy starring Natalie Wood as the titular bombshell, a restless young woman whose kleptomania will soon catch up with her. As the wife of prominent banker James Elcott (Ian Bannen), there is no shortage of temptations right in front of Penelope -- and since he seems to be paying more attention to his work, she decides to rob his newest branch and gets away with $60,000 easily. Penelope's recent heist (not to mention all the other valuables she's stolen over the last several years) is a secret that has only been revealed to her psychiatrist Gregory (Dick Shawn), who would probably call the cops if he weren't so madly in love.

It's easy to tell that Penelope was made when the Hays Code was finally on its way out...or maybe, like Gregory, the MPAA was just too distracted by Natalie Wood's photogenic...well, everything. Her selfish behavior and devil-may-care attitude shouldn't make her a likable character but she is anyway, thanks to Penelope's ultra-light touch and relatively low stakes, given the subject matter. Performances are great from top to bottom, including the listed supporting roles and others like Peter Falk, who portrays Lieutenant Horatio Bixbee, lead investigator on the bank robbery. While a few elements have aged poorly (the scene with Jonathan Winters as a lustful college professor is just awful) and other small subplots tend to hamper the film's otherwise smooth and breezy momentum, most of Penelope still plays well enough for a comedy well past its 50th birthday. It also doubles as a valuable time capsule of 1960s Manhattan with plenty of notable landmarks, strong cinematography by Harry Stradling (A Streetcar Named Desire), and very stylish outfits: costume designer Edith Head (The Sting) supplied Natalie Wood with a wardrobe reportedly worth $250,000.

Nonetheless, Penelope was mostly rejected by critics at the time and did relatively poor business at the box office, enough so that Natalie Wood did not return to the big screen until 1969's Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. (She even turned down the lead role in Bonnie and Clyde during her brief hiatus.) It's often mentioned as a footnote in the late actress' largely solid career as a leading lady, and was never even released on home video in America -- no VHS, no DVD, no nothing. Luckily, that's all changed thanks to Warner Archives' new Blu-ray, which includes an absolutely gorgeous 4K-sourced restoration and lossless audio, as well as a pair of short but appreciated bonus features. It's not exactly a lost treasure or "sleeper disc of the year" material, but Penelope is still pretty fun. Those who have been waiting for this on home video for years (decades?) will be overjoyed, and even curious newcomers should consider a blind buy.

Penelope Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Warner Archive Collection routinely serves up some of the best-looking catalog Blu-rays in the business, and Penelepe is no different: this film absolutely sparkles like new, thanks to their recent restoration sourced from a 4K scan of the original camera negative. Shot on Kodak Eastmancolor film and beautifully framed at 2.35:1, Penelope looks very appealing from start to finish with warm and well-saturated colors that create a lot of visual interest. From era-specific interior decorations to beautiful urban storefronts and dozens of attractive outfits for our title character by costume designer Edith Head, hardly a scene goes by where our eyes aren't searching the frame for something nice to look at. The overall image is extremely clean and consistent with a pleasing amount of natural grain, and WAC's typically excellent disc encoding and high bitrate ensure a smooth, film-like appearance from start to finish. Considering this also marks Penelope's debut on domestic home video, die-hard fans will fall head over heels in love.

Penelope Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Penelope's DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio mix stays true to the film's one-channel roots, with cleanly-recorded dialogue that often takes a backseat to the sprightly original score by "Johnny Williams" -- yes, that John Williams. Moderate depth is achieved but, considering most of the film revolves around overlapping indoor conversations, there's not a whole lot to get excited about. Still, this is a perfectly solid effort with absolutely no glaring defects. The only variance in quality I could detect was actually for the better: a stray line or two, spoken by our title character right around the 70-minute mark, sounds like it was looped with much better equipment than whatever was used on-set.

English (SDH) subtitles are included during the film; they're formatted perfectly with no sync issues and fit within the 2.35:1 frame. Nice to see that WAC might be finally moving away from the ugly yellow ALL CAPS variety.

Penelope Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Penelope is packaged in a standard keepcase with revealing poster-themed cover artwork that does a horrible job of advertising the film's actual name (and no, it's not She's Public Entertainment #1). On-disc extras are minimal...but considering this is Penelope's domestic home video debut, they're better than nothing.

• Edith Head Featurette (4:28) - This extremely dated but charming piece highlights the work of Penelope's costume designer, whose work is shown modeled by Natalie Wood along with clips from the film.

• Theatrical Trailer (2:39) - A lively promotional piece that captures the film's spirit Watch it here.

Penelope Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

As bright and alluring as its magnetic leading lady, Penelope is a featherweight and fun little romp that fans of classic screwball comedy should enjoy. Although it occasionally has trouble maintaining its balance and a number of elements haven't aged very well, those who saw and fell in love with this film decades ago will absolutely adore Warner Archive Collection's new Blu-ray; newcomers might enjoy it too, especially those who are fans of the cast. The 4K-sourced A/V presentation is absolutely outstanding, even if those bonus features leave something to be desired.