As entertaining as this is (and remarkably well cast although a few talents are greatly wasted), when you compare this to the original screen version of "The Women", you just have to ask yourself "why?". There's a bit of irony in this though which makes it more a curiosity piece considering some of the casting, particularly two Mrs. Dick Powell's, the former (Joan Blondell) and the current (June Allyson), sharing a few scenes as social acquaintances yet not the best of friends. Allyson has taken over the Mary Haines role and now she is a former nightclub singer who gave it all up to marry Leslie Nielsen ("Shirley, you can't be serious!") and raise their daughter. He is bored and takes up with Joan Collins' Crystal Allen (Ironic considering her rivalry with Krystal on "Dynasty"), a showgirl who is roommates with the future Morticia Adams and briefly Mrs. Aaron Spelling (Carolyn Jones) and performs with her in a musical revue that gives the pregnant Blondell morning sickness after eating a huge banana split and having to view the tacky production number "Trees de Banana".
If that isn't enough, there's future "Depends" commercial star Allyson singing a song called "Cling to Me" in a horrid looking pants suit (of course complete with "Peter Pan Collar"). At least she gets to reprise "The Young Man With a Horn" as she had in 1944's "Two Girls and a Sailor", once again accompanied by Harry James on his trumpet. Dick Shawn joins Collins, Jones and Jim Backus in the tacky title song in which Backus gets to be amusing giving us his Thurston Howell/Mr. Magoo laugh. Dolores Gray, singing the title song over the opening credits, takes on the Rosalind Russell role, and is the one who ends up marrying Buck Winston rather than the countess, played here straight by Agnes Moorehead. Ann Miller as chorus girl Miriam Aarons has no musical number whatsoever, ending her MGM contract on a sour note, yet at least gets a great catfight with Gray.
By this time, the MGM musical was a "hit" ("High Society") or "miss" (this), resulting to remaking their old masterpieces either for the big screen or T.V. ("The Thin Man"), and with many of their contract players on their way out the door (this was long after Louis B. Mayer had left, although he was attempting a take-over around the time this came out), and it is sad to realize that their golden era wasn't quite over but yet never the same as it had been under the old master. A few more musicals and some biblical epics and film versions of Broadway plays would keep MGM a major player, but with T.V. keeping viewers away, it was obvious that they would never recapture the former glory.
If that isn't enough, there's future "Depends" commercial star Allyson singing a song called "Cling to Me" in a horrid looking pants suit (of course complete with "Peter Pan Collar"). At least she gets to reprise "The Young Man With a Horn" as she had in 1944's "Two Girls and a Sailor", once again accompanied by Harry James on his trumpet. Dick Shawn joins Collins, Jones and Jim Backus in the tacky title song in which Backus gets to be amusing giving us his Thurston Howell/Mr. Magoo laugh. Dolores Gray, singing the title song over the opening credits, takes on the Rosalind Russell role, and is the one who ends up marrying Buck Winston rather than the countess, played here straight by Agnes Moorehead. Ann Miller as chorus girl Miriam Aarons has no musical number whatsoever, ending her MGM contract on a sour note, yet at least gets a great catfight with Gray.
By this time, the MGM musical was a "hit" ("High Society") or "miss" (this), resulting to remaking their old masterpieces either for the big screen or T.V. ("The Thin Man"), and with many of their contract players on their way out the door (this was long after Louis B. Mayer had left, although he was attempting a take-over around the time this came out), and it is sad to realize that their golden era wasn't quite over but yet never the same as it had been under the old master. A few more musicals and some biblical epics and film versions of Broadway plays would keep MGM a major player, but with T.V. keeping viewers away, it was obvious that they would never recapture the former glory.