Allen $30,000. Allen accepted provided he could also appear in the film. As Allen worked on the script, his first screenplay, Beatty noticed that Allen's role was continually growing at the expense of his own. Eventually, Beatty threatened to quit the production to stop this erosion, but the actor's status in Hollywood at that time had declined so severely that Feldman decided to let him leave and gave the part to Peter O'Toole. Beatty later said "I diva'ed my way out of the movie. I walked off of What's New, Pussycat? thinking they couldn't do it without me. I was wrong". According to Beatty, a new screenwriter was brought in and Allen's role was pared back to a minor character. Groucho Marx was to have played Dr. Fassbender, but at O'Toole's insistence he was replaced by Peter Sellers. O'Toole, Sellers and director Clive Donner all made changes to the script, straining their relationship with Allen. Tension was also generated by Sellers' demanding top billing, but O'Toole described the atmosphere as stimulating. Second unit director Richard Talmadge is credited with creating the karting sequence. The film was shot in and around Paris between October 1964 and January 1965 and released in New York on 22 June 1965. It opened in Paris in January 1966 as Quoi de neuf, Pussycat? The total box office take was $18,820,000. In addition to the title theme, songs featured were "Here I Am" by Dionne Warwick and "My Little Red Book" performed by Manfred Mann. Homage The scene by the River Seine in which the lovelorn Dr. Fassbender plans to commit suicide and Victor's intrusion inhibiting him from doing so pays tribute to the Charlie Chaplin film City Lights (1931), in which the Little Tramp saves a dipsomaniacal millionaire bent on self-destruction. Reception The film received mixed reviews. Bosley Crowther in The New York Times gave the film a negative review. He criticised the script, the directing and the acting and described the film as "the most outrageously cluttered and campy, noisy and neurotic display of what is evidently intended as way-out slapstick". He praised the scenery and title song. On the other hand, Andrew Sarris in The Village Voice wrote: "I have now seen What's New Pussycat? four times, and each time I find new nuances in the direction, the writing, the playing, and, above all, the music. This is one movie that is not