YMMV / Petulia

• Adaptation Displacement: The novel on which it's based, Me and The Arch Kook Petulia, is remembered mainly because of this movie (and the odd fact that its author, John Haase, was a dentist who wrote fiction on the side.)
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: The hotel built around a parking garage and Archie's Mid-Century apartment seem like sets created for the film to make ironic commentaries on America's infatuation with Modernism in The '60s, but they're actual San Francisco locations that still exist today.
• Hollywood Pudgy: Several lines of dialogue reveal that Archie's son Mike is supposed to have weight issues, but when we see him he looks quite thin, even taking into account that he was said to have lost 11 pounds after his parents divorced.
• Retroactive Recognition: Several later familiar character actors have uncredited bit parts. It was the film debut for Austin Pendleton (as a hospital orderly) and Howard Hesseman (as one of the zonked-out hippies Archie talks to), and the second film for René Auberjonois (as the salesman at the hospital).
• Slow-Paced Beginning: Actually, the issue is that the opening scene at the fundraising gala is kind of disorienting. It tosses almost all the film's main characters at us in quick succession and sets up the basic premise in short bursts of conversation. Once Archie and Petulia leave and go to the hotel, things settle down and it's easier to get into the film.
• Unintentional Period Piece: It's very much a time capsule of San Francisco in The '60s (including cameos by Janis Joplin and The Grateful Dead), which gave it an added layer of meaning over the years.

---