Review of Who Was That Lady?

A trio of major stars, close to their peak of fame at the time, help to enliven this overdrawn farce based on a moderately successful Broadway play. Curtis is a university scientist who is canoodling with a female student when his wife Leigh walks in and catches him. In no time flat, she is packing for Reno to get a divorce and orders him out of the house by 7:00pm. Curtis's pal Martin, a writer for CBS television, helps to concoct a scheme designed to fool Leigh into calling off the split. He aids Curtis in convincing Leigh that they are FBI agents and that the girl being smooched was just a small part of a much bigger plan. After some deliberation, Leigh falls for the story, but thanks to a loose end from the props department at CBS, the real FBI gets involved and things become more and more convoluted and complicated from there. Curtis is appropriately manic and desperate as he tries to inject a sense of imperativeness to the silly and unrealistic plot. Playing a cheating husband couldn't have been too great a stretch for him as he admitted to fooling around on Leigh many times during their real life marriage and, in fact, would leave her for a younger girl only two years after this. Martin appears to be investing his role with a little more conviction than he would later in his Matt Helm series and tries to add texture to his performance (or is he just trying to steal focus?) by fiddling often with props. He's mostly second fiddle to Curtis, but does get to toss out a few zesty lines now and then. Leigh (saddled with an unflatteringly tousled hairdo) overacts with abandon in order to keep up with the guys' zaniness. She cuts a nice figure in her black cocktail dress, but has a pretty dense role to play. Fortunately for her, "Psycho" would come out the same year as this and immortalize her forever in a more flattering way. Some strong supporting players, notably Whitmore as a beleaguered FBI agent and Nichols and Lansing as a couple of bottle-blonde pickups, give their all in an effort to liven up the film. Whitmore very wisely underplays his role in contrast to the more broadly acted ones. Unfortunately, the play was dated before too long after its run and the film is badly dated now. The stage origins show through frequently despite attempts to move the action around. Curtis's apartment is interestingly laid out, though very artificial in nature. This was made at a time when the big trend was to involve the Russians (see also Leigh's version of "Bye, Bye Birdie") or to throw in a big, sloppy spectacle such as a pie fight or an overflowing washing machine. Here, the Russians make their obligatory appearance and the unlikely flooding of a New York City landmark accents the climax. It wouldn't be so bad if the script didn't take so long to set things up and dwell on so many unnecessary details along the way, but it would hardly matter because the whole enterprise is both inane and distasteful in any case. There's an odd layer of (unintentional?) homoeroticism dispersed throughout as well, with Curtis and Martin contorting their way through the machinations of the plot and Curtis nearly kissing a male Soviet agent. What it's got are three charismatic stars trying their best and some clean black and white photography, but what it's lacking is a compelling premise that is carried out proficiently.