It's dumbfounding that "What?" was the film Roman Polanski made prior to his masterpiece, "Chinatown" (1974). "What?" is also disturbing as a sex comedy given the subsequent criminal charges brought against Polanski. In the film, the protagonist, Nancy, is sexually assaulted twice--plus a dog tries to mount her--and her clothes are incrementally stolen. She also has seemingly more-so-consensual sexual encounters involving whipping. A Nietzsche-reading nurse is also sexually assaulted in one scene. Sydne Rome, as Nancy, basically plays a dumb blonde stereotype who, in one instance, is literally drop dead gorgeous. Another regrettable pun involves Polanski himself as "Mosquito," so-called because "I sting with my big stinger"--a harpoon gun, it turns out. Polanski's Mosquito also mentions how he's usually turned on by women's posteriors rather than their breasts. Get past that cringe-inducing line, and the rest of the picture is downhill, albeit if still a stupid mess of sexploitation.
Some reviewers give "What?" far too much credit as having anything to do with Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." This claim seems to rest only on that weird things happen, the stretch of a comparison between a rabbit hole and an elevator lift and of the Alex character to the Mad Hatter because he fancies tea and a broken clock. Bah, I say, the continuity here is too slipshod and vapid for sustained allusions to the Alice books. Polanski also did sex comedies better when managing a firmer framework, such as in "Dance of the Vampires" (1967, a.k.a. "The Fearless Vampire Killers"). Technically, "What?" is mostly competent, although sometimes the sound design, especially in the scene where Nancy first meets Alex, is grating. Nothing of interest is done here with Nancy being a diarist, either, and she is made to break the fourth wall in the film's final inept groping for humor.
Some reviewers give "What?" far too much credit as having anything to do with Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." This claim seems to rest only on that weird things happen, the stretch of a comparison between a rabbit hole and an elevator lift and of the Alex character to the Mad Hatter because he fancies tea and a broken clock. Bah, I say, the continuity here is too slipshod and vapid for sustained allusions to the Alice books. Polanski also did sex comedies better when managing a firmer framework, such as in "Dance of the Vampires" (1967, a.k.a. "The Fearless Vampire Killers"). Technically, "What?" is mostly competent, although sometimes the sound design, especially in the scene where Nancy first meets Alex, is grating. Nothing of interest is done here with Nancy being a diarist, either, and she is made to break the fourth wall in the film's final inept groping for humor.