by Douglas Messserli
This pleasant comedy has a predictable
plot: playboy novelist Owen Waterbury (Kirk Douglas) is less interested in
writing than in living the life of a noted writer—consuming women and money as
an alcoholic does wine. As the story begins, in fact, he has just broken up
with his former "secretary," and is in search of a shapely replacement.
Speaking before an adult creative writing class, Waterbury meets Stephanie
'Steve' Gaylord (Laraine Day), suggesting that she apply for the job; once he
perceives her assets, she is quickly hired. She determines to leave her current
job working for bookstore owner Rudy Vallee in search of independent study, but
quickly discovers, to her dismay, that Waterbury prefers doing almost anything
but practicing his "art."
Between rejecting his advances and her attempts to reform him, Gaylord
pens her own best seller, outdoing her former employer. He has no choice, since
she has hooked him as well, but to marry her and reform. End of story?
Fortunately not.
Mrs. Reeves: I
guess I'll run along.
Ronnie Hastings: Must you go? I
was just poisoning the tea.
Ronnie Hastings:
Is it informal, or shall I bathe?
Or, as he later describes the role the
aspiring actress, Dawn O'Malley, would play, based on Waterbury's non-existent
book: "You have to be insincere and be a moron."
Better that direction than taking the pious Gaylord—who seems to be attracted
to the most undesirable of men, including the maxim-spouting publisher and the
empty-minded mamma's boy—and her marriage to Waterbury seriously. Fortunately,
the comedy boils over the romance:
Ronnie Hastings:
I made a wedding breakfast...spaghetti and
meatballs.
*The fact that Waterbury's romantic
interest has a male nick-name, Steve, and a last name that suggests quite the
opposite of a heterosexual relationship, Gaylord, further spices the pot.
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