WHO WAS THAT LADY?

WHO WAS THAT LADY? (1960) is the kind of smarmy sex farce that Hollywood turned out by the dozens in the 1960s. The three leads, Tony Curtis, Dean Martin and Janet Leigh are all fine with Martin clearly enjoying playing the stooge after serving as straight man to Jerry Lewis when the two were a comedy team in the 1950s.  

Curtis is a Columbia University chemistry professor. His wife, Leigh, catches him kissing another woman (whom we only ever see from the waist down) and decides to fly to Reno and get a divorce. Curtis, desperate to save his marriage, enlists best buddy Martin, who happens to be a television writer, for help. Martin concocts a wild story about the two men secretly serving as F.B.I. agents and, with the help of some realistic props from the television studio, Leigh is convinced they're telling the truth and forgives Curtis. 

All is going well until James Whitmore, a for real F.B.I. agent, shows up and starts asking around. Comedy (I use the term loosely) chaos ensues as Curtis, Martin and Leigh get caught up in a Cold War spy plot involving enemy agents played by Simon Oakland and the great Larry Storch. 

WHO is decidedly dated in it's characterization of women. In fact, it's downright misogynistic. Leigh plays an otherwise intelligent woman who falls hook, line and sinker for the wild F.B.I. story and wants to be part of the adventure. The only other women with sizeable roles in the film are Barbara Nichols and Joi Lansing as the blonde and buxom Coogle sisters whom Curtis and Martin get involved with. 

Another factor working against WHO is the fact that it was originally written and produced as a play and director George Sidney does nothing to open up the action and take it out of a series of well designed sets (dig that crazy two level pad where Curtis and Leigh live!).  But given that the writer of the material, Norman Krasna, was also the producer of the film, I suspect that he had final say over the entire production. 

Sidney later directed two of my all time favorite Ann-Margret films, BYE, BYE, BIRDIE (1963) and VIVA LAS VEGAS (1964) while Janet Leigh, Simon Oakland and John McIntire would all appear in Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO (also released in 1960).

WHO WAS THAT LADY? is a product of its' time, the type of film that simply could not be made by the end of the decade. If you can overlook its' sizeable flaws, you might enjoy it. Personally, I got a kick out of watching Martin's performance but other parts of the film made me wince. 

Flip a coin.