This film has its moments of great screwball comedy, and Tashlin seems to keep alive the finesse and sophistication of a Hawks, McCarey or LaCava. The story built around the attraction between two opposite individuals never reach the sublime heights of `Bringing up Baby' needles to say, Taylor and Day aren't Grant and Hepburn-, and it seems that this film greatest problem is not to dare going too far in its craze, as other Tashlin's films like `Rock Hunter' or `Artists and Models' did. Probably the cause is the plot dealing with the cold war, a subject pretty much on the focus at the time. Now and them you feel that the director is doing a sort of journalism through a territory that doesn't suit him as good as Hollywood and its superficiality, for example. But Tashlin always manages to insert his comments about the decadence of American life, a circumstance that not even the fanciest of technology can hide. In his anarchic fashion, Tashlin's films counterpart Douglas Sirk's melodramas. Both are about the same, but the path chosen to express its vision are opposite.
This film has a wonderful use of color, an admirable pacing and a freshness rarely seen in the studio comedies of the time (the singing scene in the boat looks totally improvised). But if Tashlin's background as a cartoonist often contributes to his creative ability to take situations beyond the edge, and to destroy a stiff established order, very seldom this very quality can work against him. And this is what happens with all the bad guys in this film. They are a mere caricature, and one can never feel them as a serious threat. The theme demanded something more serious, and these clumsy amateurs certainly fail.
Anyway, watch the film and sing the title's tune; it'll remain with you for ages.
