Woody Allen has acted in, directed, and written many films starting in the 1960s. His first film was the 1965 comedy What's New Pussycat?, which featured him as both writer and performer. Allen felt that his New Yorker humor was mismatched with the director Clive Donner's British sensibility, and decided he wished to direct all future films from his material. He was unable to prevent the production of films by other directors from previous stage plays of his to which he had already sold the film rights, notably 1972's successful film Play it Again, Sam from the 1969 play of the same title directed by Herbert Ross.