Paula Prentiss Movies
Texas native Paula Prentiss was the daughter of an Italian-born oil company labor relations man. Her reputation as a cut-up at Virginia's Randolph Macon School would haunt her in "I knew her when" magazine articles for the rest of her life. She buckled down long enough to study drama at Northwestern University, where she met future husband Richard Benjamin. In 1960, Prentiss was signed by MGM, which groomed her for stardom in such films as Where the Boys Are (1960), The Honeymoon Machine (1961), and The Horizontal Lieutenant (1963). Her unique comic gifts and offbeat personality would seem to make her more suited to screwball supporting parts than romantic leads, though she's certainly had her share of both. In 1967, Prentiss co-starred with husband Dick Benjamin in He and She, a TV sitcom which, despite low ratings, accrued a loyal cult following. She continued popping up in excellent film roles into the 1980s, as well as appearing in TV movies like MADD: Mothers Against Drunk Driving (1983). Paula Prentiss is the older sister of actress Ann Prentiss. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1961
Just a few years before The Great Escape would catapult Steve McQueen to stardom, the charismatic actor played the lead, Lt. Fergie Howard, in this light romantic farce involving the computers on a Navy ship. Lt. Howard is playing poker on the good ship El Mira when he gets a brilliant idea. Why not use the ship's computer "Max" to figure out where the ball will land on a roulette wheel? After the ship docks near Venice, he and Ensign Beau Gillaim (Jack Mullaney), along with navy scientist Jason Eldridge (Jim Hutton) check out the casino there. Then they set up the ship's computer to receive incoming signals from the results at the roulette wheel, planning on it to predict which numbers will come up next. Trouble lies ahead when Admiral Fitch (Dean Jagger) intercepts the signals and assumes that the fleet is about to be attacked. While the subsequent chaos reigns, the women (Paula Prentiss and Brigid Bazlen) in these men's lives get involved. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve McQueen, Brigid Bazlen, (more)
- 1961
Although the talented cast in this uninspired comedy do the best they can with their lines, nothing quite brings The Horizontal Lieutenant to an upright, stand-up-and-take-notice presence. Paula Prentiss as Lt. Molly Blue and Jim Hutton as Lt. Merle Wye are once again paired, this time as officers in action in the Pacific at the end of World War II. Lt. Wye is given the challenge of bringing in a lone Japanese hold-out on an island that was taken by the American forces many months earlier. Though the situation has great potential, pratfalls and the most obvious gags take the place of a more sophisticated humor. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jim Hutton, Paula Prentiss, (more)
While the Watergate scandal filled the headlines, Alan J. Pakula's 1974 thriller took its inspiration from the conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedy assassination. Journalist Joe Frady (Warren Beatty) misses witnessing the assassination of a senator at Seattle's Space Needle, but his newswoman former girlfriend Lee Carter (Paula Prentiss) was there. Even after a government commission concludes that it was a freak lone assassin, Lee tells Joe that she fears for her life since other witnesses keep dying. After she too turns up dead, Joe investigates, travelling to the small town where another witness has mysteriously expired. Stumbling on a corporate identity for the killers, Joe decides to dig deeper by infiltrating the Parallax Corporation as one of their hired assassins. As Joe becomes increasingly isolated in his assumed identity, he discovers what Parallax is all about -- but Parallax knows all about Joe too. Made between Klute (1971) and All the President's Men (1976), The Parallax View was the second film in Pakula's "paranoia" trilogy; it proved too dark even for a 1974 audience that embraced such other challenging films of that year as The Godfather, Part II and Chinatown, making The Parallax View the sole flop of Pakula's trilogy. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Warren Beatty, Hume Cronyn, (more)
In the William Goldman-scripted, Bryan Forbes-directed adaptation of Ira Levin's savagely satiric sci-fi novel The Stepford Wives, housewife Joanna (Katharine Ross) moves with husband Walter (Peter Masterson) and their children to the "ideal" suburban community of Stepford, CT. Slowly, Joanna deduces that something is amiss; most of the other housewives are vapid creatures who speak in trivialities and live only to please their husbands. Together with new friend Bobby (Paula Prentiss), she investigates this curious status quo. When Bobby also succumbs to cloying sweetness, Joanna discovers that Stepford's husbands have conspired with male chauvinist scientists to replace all the wives with computerized android duplicates. The Stepford Wives became a massive, runaway hit, earning four million dollars domestically. Mega-producer Scott Rudin and director Frank Oz teamed up for a remake in 2004. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Katharine Ross, Paula Prentiss, (more)
- 1980
The 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid provides the setting for this drama that centers on a man's mid-life crisis. While there, he gets involved with love, sex and other diversions. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Decked out with another of his American accents, Peter Sellers plays self-centered concert pianist Henry Orient. While Henry's active libido sends him off on pursuit of married woman Paula Prentiss, a pair of preteen boarding-school chums, played by Tippy Walker and Merrie Spaeth, worship Orient from afar. The girls' overworked imaginations, manifested in pursuing Orient about and recording their fantasies in their diaries, leads Walker's mom, Angela Lansbury, to conclude that Henry has "had his way" with her underaged daughter. The World of Henry Orient was later musicalized for Broadway as Henry, Sweet Henry. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Sellers, Paula Prentiss, (more)
A notorious womanizer, fashion editor Michael James (Peter O'Toole) decides to seek the help of a psychiatrist when he begins to feel that his inability to commit to a relationship is adversely affecting his personal life. Desperate to remain faithful to his fiancée Carole (Romy Schneider), Michael enlists the help of Dr. Fassbinder (Peter Sellers), blissfully unaware that as Dr. Fassbinder is making the moves on a patient who secretly longs for the seemingly irresistible Michael. As Michael and Carole check into the Chateau Chantelle in hopes of patching up their relationship, Dr. Fassbinder has also arrived at the Chateau in hopes of finally cementing his relationship with the comely patient. As the two couples check into the hotel, disaster looms just beyond the bend in a series of hilarious mishaps that will test both Michael's faithfulness and Dr. Fassbinder's sanity. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Sellers, Peter O'Toole, (more)
Yvette Mimeux, Paula Prentiss, Connie Francis, and Dolores Hart star in this frothy teen romance-drama as attractive co-eds who take off from Midwest colleges on the annual spring break to land in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida -- where the boys are. There are plenty of parties, booze, and sex to keep minds off calculus for awhile. Merritt Andrews (Hart) and Ryder Smith (George Hamilton) manage to get together, Tuggle Carpenter (Paula Prentiss) manages to let her comedic talents shine, Angie (Connie Francis) sings the hit title song, but Melanie (Yvette Mimeux) becomes a casualty of too many good times. She will recover, and all the leads will go on to good, even great careers in some cases. Dolores Hart was the only featured player here to leave Hollywood behind -- she became a Benedictine nun in 1963. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dolores Hart, George Hamilton, (more)
