WHAT'S NEW, PUSSYCAT? **

"What's New, Pussycat?"was Woody Allen's first screen credit so you might say it was his earliest funny one. Directing duties, however, were in the hands of Clive Donner who seemed to take a back seat and just let everyone get on with it. Maybe he just didn't get Allen's  "Hellzapoppin"-scatological quick-fire gags. Whatever the reason, the film's sloppy but it's also very funny. Allen himself pops up in a typical early Allen role, (the sex-obsessed nerd), while the leading roles go to Peter O'Toole, (handling an early comic performance with considerable aplomb), and Peter Sellers who looks like he could have wandered in from "The Goons". It is, of course, a sex comedy and the terrific looking women O'Toole, Sellers and Allen lust after include Romy Schneider, Capucine, (who showed she could be a surprisingly sharp comedienne), Paula Prentiss and Ursula Andress. Burt Bacharach wrote the splendidly jaunty score and the splendid credits were courtesy of Richard Williams.