There is a level of high expectation when you sit down to watch a comedy with a cast headed by Cary Grant, Jayne Mansfield, Ray Walston and Werner Klemperer. Those expectations are buoyed further when the film is directed by Stanley Donen, whose comic touch was so evident in, among others, DAMN YANKEES!, BEDAZZLED and CHARADE. For the first five minutes, or so, it seems that those expectations might be met and thenÂ…. Nothing. What is supposed to be a light comedy, plunges into leaden, heavy handed melodrama, with nary a chuckle to be had.

Relative newcomer Suzy Parker has often been criticized for her performance, or lack of one, in this film, but in a movie in which even the great Cary Grant frequently appears flat and wooden, attacking Parker seems unfair. Not even as bright a light as an Audrey Hepburn or Doris Day could have changed the fortunes of this meandering, dreary and wholly pointless script, which drags itself lamely along and drags the viewer's interest and patience down with it.

The rest of the cast, especially Ray Walston, keep trying to breath some life into the proceedings, but the horrible script is beyond resuscitation. The desperate, inane effort to drag a half hearted laugh from the numbed audience in the film's final moments only serves to add insult to injury.

This film is nothing but a major disappointment on all levels.