Me, Natalie (1969)

Still living at home in Brooklyn, a homely girl (Patty Duke) feels stifled by her parents (Nancy Marchand, Philip Sterling) who are eager for her to get married. So, she moves to Greenwich Village to "find herself". Directed by Fred Coe (A THOUSAND CLOWNS), this movie is a morass of cliches delivered by a (mostly) excellent cast. The biggest problem I had with the film is that Duke's character is a walking, talking pity party. She has a huge chip on her shoulder, just waiting for someone to try and be nice to her so she can bite their head off. Of course, she softens as the film progresses until the film's last 10 minutes when she "finds herself". Duke may not be a great beauty but homely she's not, so the film makers have given her an unflattering set of teeth. But there are some good things in the film especially the performances, notably Salome Jens (in the film's best performance) as a junkie stripper and Marchand as Duke's out of touch but caring mother. There's a nice score by Henry Mancini except when its accompanied by Rod McKuen's mawkish lyrics during two montage sequences. With James Farentino, Martin Balsam, Elsa Lanchester, Catherine Burns, Deborah Winters, Bob Balaban and a young Al Pacino.