Who Was That Lady? (1960)

This was not a great movie...There is only one likable character in the entire film and he doesn't show up until the middle of the movie. Until then, we have to content ourselves with a lecherous Dean Martin, an ANNOYING Tony Curtis and a sexy but tense Janet Leigh.The plot is simple: Man gets caught kissing student by wife; man makes up implausible story about being FBI agent; lie comes back to bite him later. The situations in this situation comedy are never that funny or interesting.The film almost gets funny near the end when the pair trash the basement of the Empire State building; but, not quite.But, the movie is worth watching just to see Larry Storch play a Russian torturer.

Right to be surprised when you find out that this screwball comedy with extravagant plot ridiculous and childish humor in 1960 was twofold nominated for film award "Golden Globe", namely in the categories of Best Actor and Best Film. If the first tape of George Sidney (Kiss Me Kate) is quite tolerant of his romantic escapades, foolish pretense heroes Dean Martin and Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh heroine's reaction to all this, the next story tape makes a roll in the direction of incongruity is happening that is not only not to laugh want to even see it's not worth it.It all starts with the fact that Columbia University chemistry professor David Wilson catches kissing a young student in the eyes of his wife, Ann. Wife confronts him and immediately wanted to divorce. His friend Mike comes up with his legend: "FBI agent and he kissed the girl, in order to fulfill its top-secret mission!" For the more convincing it also provides him a fake identity and a pistol. All work is done! Few fool about before her and took off with the blame, our heroes can go on a spree with other women. But here's the rub - Blessed David all took so seriously that starts everywhere to poke their nose in their "cause." She asked with great curiosity, how is service and what it's like to be always on the "knife edge".The culmination of the first half of the film (which still was a little funny compared to those that started later) will be involved in their game is not clear from emerging Soviet agents and quite shameless and totally ridiculous encompassing theme of the Cold War.Of course, the movie captivates enjoyable actors. Dean Martin and Tony Curtis lovely man, though not shine here with his skill, and Janet Leigh is incredibly charming, although it is in principle a very beautiful woman, it would be foolish to write this series dignity movie.

I'd always wanted to check out this well-regarded if rarely-seen comedy – for the record, some years back I missed out on its sole Italian TV screening (that I know of). For Tony Curtis, it meant something of a follow-up to the classic SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959) – where he's forced, with his co-star (in this case, Dean Martin), to pass himself off as something he isn't (an F.B.I. agent), leading to misunderstanding, various complications and imminent danger.Similarly, a female is involved in the shenanigans (Curtis' on and off-screen wife Janet Leigh) though, here, the whole ruse starts off because of her: Chemistry Professor Curtis' fling with a female student is discovered by his jealous wife, so he turns for help to his best pal – TV writer Martin – who procures him with papers (and a gun) denoting his Bureau affiliations; Leigh is finally convinced of this and, soon after, is contacted by a real F.B.I. operative (James Whitmore) who uses her to keep track of just what Curtis and Martin are up to! One of the highlights of the film is the extended yet splendid incident in a restaurant: Leigh accepts Curtis' excuse to go on the town with Martin, believing it to be another federal job – but, in her over-eagerness to help, effectively blows his cover…which then lands the F.B.I. itself in hot water! The biggest trouble, however, is that enemy agents take the two men to be the real deal and kidnap them (and Leigh) in order to extract vital information they believe Curtis is in possession of! The aftermath of this sequence is again hilarious as, dazed by the drug he's been given, Curtis thinks they've been taken to a Russian sub and persuades Martin to flood it…but it transpires that they're in the basement of the Empire State Building! The script (adapted by Norman Krasna – who also produced – from his own play) balances witty dialogue with inspired zany situations, which are then delightfully put across by an excellent cast. Both male stars, in fact, were already adept at this type of thing (crooner Martin also sings the title tune), but Leigh surprisingly proves a fine comedienne in her own right: it's a pity that her marriage to Curtis was crumbling by this time which is doubly ironic given the film's plot, but they were professional enough not to let the real cracks show in their performances.

This film has to be one of the very best romantic comedies ever made. It works well on so many levels and leaves the viewer with a good feeling at the end. I remember seeing it numerous times when it was released in the year 1960. This is a real feel-good movie, made in a more innocent time before the antiwar protests and campus revolts which characterized the latter years of that decade. This movie stays with you long after you see it. It was just released on DVD, 47 years after it came out. I have always had fond and wonderful memories of this film. Watching it tonight just before sitting down to write this review was like seeing an old friend whom you haven't seen for decades. All those warm feelings and fond remembrances just came flooding right back and it's like you're 10 years old again. The storyline is simple and straightforward. TONY CURTIS plays David Wilson, an assistant professor of chemistry at Columbia University. His wife Ann(JANET LEIGH) decides to surprise him by dropping in unexpectedly and catches him in a liplock with a female co-ed who initiated it. She runs out, jumps in a cab and angrily announces that she's divorcing him and he'll be out of their apartment that evening. Panic-stricken, David calls his old friend Mike Haney(DEAN MARTIN), a mystery writer for the CBS television network. David pleads with him to come up with a good excuse that he could use with Ann to explain away what happened. Over tall drinks of 90-proof chemistry lab hootch, Mike comes up with an explanation- and it's a doozy. He tells David that he was kissing her in the performance of his duty- as an undercover agent for the FBI! David thinks that Mike is nuts and tells him that Ann would never buy such a ridiculous tale. But Mike convinces him that it would work and takes him to the prop department at CBS where he orders up an authentic looking FBI identification card and a police revolver that ostensibly will be used on his show. They confront Ann at the apartment that evening and go through a whole routine to convince her that her hubby is a G-man. Skeptical at first, she winds up buying it after seeing the card and the gun. A comedy of errors ensues when the FBI gets involved after the props are not used on the show and when DEAN MARTIN decides to capitalize on the situation by suckering David into going on a double-date with two platinum blonde bombshells played by BARBARA NICHOLS and JOI LANSING, all in the line of duty, of course. David and Ann wind up on the six o'clock news when Ann goes to the Chinese restaurant with a real FBI Agent(JAMES WHITMORE) to give David "his" gun which he forgot to take with him. Misinterpreting what she overhears in the powder room, Ann thinks the two blondes plan on killing her husband and Mike! She attempts to stop them at gunpoint and in the ensuing struggle for the revolver, the gun goes off and Agent Powell takes a bullet in the arm. David is rendered unconscious by a flowerpot falling off a window ledge that lands on his head. A mobile television news crew arrives and Ann, cradling her unconscious husband in her arms, tells the reporter that he works for the FBI and the two blondes are enemy agents! The next day the newspapers have blaring headlines about FBI undercover agents capturing Soviet spies in Times Square! The plot thickens when government wiretaps reveal that actual Russian agents want to get their hands on David because he knows the names of fellow scientists at Columbia University who are conducting research on germ warfare and radioactivity. Posing as FBI Agents, the Russians(LARRY STORCH and SIMON OAKLAND) sucker David, Ann and Mike to the Empire State Building for a photo shoot by the Bureau's Public Relations Division. The FBI sets up a stakeout but the Russians succeed in isolating the trio in an elevator and administering sodium pentothal to make David talk while using chloroform on Ann. This is one of the funniest sequences in the film. David doesn't reveal anything and STORCH tells him if he doesn't cooperate, they'll take his wife and put her on a submarine and he'll never see her again! When the Russians realize that the pentothal is starting to wear off and the FBI is hot on their heels, they abandon the three in the building's basement. When his wife regains consciousness, David, still coming off the pentothal, tells her he's going to jail for 180 years because it's against the law to have a fake FBI card. Then he asks her if she'll wait for him! When she asks him about the two platinum blondes, he tells her "They sing and dance- like rabbits." Angered, she runs out of the basement. Mike had been knocked out and when he and David "wake up", David, seeing turn valves, levers and utility pipes, thinks they're on board a Russian submarine! They decide to sink it by opening all the valves and pulling all the levers. As the basement floods with water, it shorts out the building's electrical system, causing the even-numbered floors to boil over and the odd-numbered floors to freeze! The film ends on a happy note as firemen break in to halt the flooding, the Russian spies are captured, and Ann, now knowing the whole truth of what happened, tells her husband, "Come on home, my darling." The last scene is a shot of Manhattan taken from Queens, showing a mushroom cloud of steam rising from the top of the Empire State Building! This is one of my all-time favorites and I give it a 10 out of 10. Don't miss this one. It's an absolute gem!