ScoobyMint Disappointment for a huge fan!

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Cristal The movie really just wants to entertain people.

mark.waltz When a professor's wife (Janet Leigh) catches him (Tony Curtis) kissing a pretty student (only the bottom half of her seen), she prepares to leave for Reno for a quickie divorce. His rascal pal Dean Martin has a plan; He comes up with a false FBI card and makes Curtis claim that he was on assignment and the alleged student was really a Russian spy. OK, so far, if not totally believable, then predictable for a 1960's sex comedy. But when FBI man James Whitmore learns about the scheme, he gets involved, and before you know it, the overly chatty Leigh believes Curtis and Martin, who are "off on assignment" with two supposed Russian spies (Barbara Nichols and Joi Lansing) whom Martin simply wants to get together with as a "sure thing". Leigh and Whitmore follow them to the restaurant and before you know it (if you are actually following this), the two men are inside the basement of the Empire State Building up to their necks in water, thinking they are on a Russian submarine! Yes, I too was, like, "huh?", as I tried to find any amusement in this comedy of lies with two actors I like, a leading lady I am beginning to truly find annoying, two blonde bombshells who always add fun even to dreck like this, and one of the great character actors of all time (Whitmore) in a screenplay that Boris and Natasha of "Bullwinkle" would have turned down. Yes indeed, Curtis and Martin are as dumb as Moose and Squirrel, and that jealous wife Leigh never shuts up, even when happy, this movie simply becomes one of the most annoying of the sometimes ridiculous genre of 60's sex comedy influenced by "Pillow Talk".To add on that this was based upon a Broadway play and that it was directed by MGM musical veteran George Sidney ("Show Boat", "Kiss Me Kate") is even more perplexing. Then, being filmed in black and white, which makes no sense for a film like this, is another minus. Larry Storch and Simon Oakland are the two unfortunate character actors who do come on as Russian spies is something that you might have seen in a Russian spy storyline on "Gilligan's Island" or an episode of "Get Smart!" where at least you are expecting buffoonery. A major misfire altogether, not to mention the horrid title song that Martin must sing over the opening credits where Leigh discovers Curtis in the unforgivable embrace with a girl you never get to see, even the bottom half of her, after those credits end.

MARIO GAUCI 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.

bkoganbing I remember seeing this film around the time it first came out and looking at it again today, I had forgotten how wildly funny it was. In fact listening to my record collection, the thing I had remembered most about Who Was That Lady? was the very good title song that Dean Martin sung and had a record of which sold a few platters back in the day.But the film itself is a hilarious Cold War spy farce. It's based on a Norman Krasna play that ran for 208 performances on Broadway in 1958 with the slightly elongated title of Who Was That Lady I Saw You With. On Broadway the roles played by Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, and Dean Martin were done by Peter Lind Hayes, Mary Healy, and Ray Walston.It all begins when chemistry professor at Columbia University Tony Curtis is caught by wife Janet Leigh in fast embrace with a foreign exchange student. She's back to their apartment and packing her bags for Reno. Curtis who really loves his wife is in a terrible state, what to do?Depending on how you look at it, long time pal Dean Martin is eager to help. He's a television writer for CBS and he's good with figuring out plot explanations. Mainly because Curtis is convinced Leigh just won't believe that the foreign exchange student was kissing him in gratitude. So what do these two knuckleheads conceive? That Curtis was kissing the girl in the line of duty because he's an undercover agent for the FBI. In fact they get an FBI card printed up and a gun from the prop department at CBS. And to further 'aid' the story, Martin gets Curtis to get four dots tattooed on his heel as he did back in his fraternity days. Isn't that what all FBI agents have.But when Leigh buys the story all too well and the printer goes to the real FBI when the card doesn't show up on the CBS program as Martin said it would, the fun really starts. Even a pair of chuckleheaded Russian agents played by Simon Oakland and Larry Storch actually believe Curtis is an FBI man working on a super secret project at Columbia.The biggest change from stage to screen had to be Dean Martin for Ray Walston. Certainly Dean is far more believable as the wolfish television writer, but there are some outrageous comedy bits that Martin has that I could definitely see Ray Walston doing on stage.This was the last screen pairing of Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, within three years a Hollywood storybook marriage would be at an end. Janet has her innings in this film also especially in the restaurant tailing her husband and Martin who has set him up on a double date with the Coogle Sisters, a pair of foreign agents from Brooklyn. All I can say there is that there is no doubt that these two had to contain four weapons of mass destruction in the persons of Joi Lansing and Barbara Nichols.A lot of the problem is caused by FBI agent James Whitmore who after interviewing Leigh first, realized what was going on, but decided to hold off until he could get Curtis alone. Whitmore plays the part as a good foil for Leigh's ingenuousness. Of course Whitmore has to answer to his field office boss John McIntire who in turn has to answer to you know who in Washington.It all ends quite uproariously in the basement of the Empire State Building when Curtis and Martin think they're on a submarine and proceed to try and 'sink' it. Got to be seen to be believed.

STEVEN DANKO 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!