Review of What a Woman!

The Rosalind Russell stereotype of the high hat business executive/lady boss gets probably its most tiresome plot. There's the macho man she despises (Brian Aherne), the cultured man she respects (Willard Parker) and the one she falls in love with. Who could that possibly be? It takes over 90 minutes for her to get to the final choice, and along the way, she cracks wise, dresses glamorously and fights the stereotype of what a war era woman should be. Even if women got to run things while the men were "over there", something tells me that the Rosalind Russell archetype was an overachiever long before women on the swing shift flexed their muscle and insisted, "We can do it!"

Russell works as a publishing executive who discovers that mild mannered college professor Parker is a best selling author using a pseudonym. Fellow publisher Aherne keeps stalking them, gives Rosalind the worst of times, and makes smoke come out of her ears due to his insensitivity. But where there's smoke, there's fire, reuniting the stars of "My Sister Eileen" and keeping them working in the same industry. So Aherne and Russell talk fast, fight over the silliest things, and yet as well intended as it is, it just isn't all that funny, proving that lightning doesn't always strike twice. Roz has a great outburst towards the end, but that doesn't change the fact that the story is stale, unbelievable and mostly dull