After making a series of arty movies Warren Beatty decided to do something popular. He had developed What's New Pussycat? then turned it down at the eleventh hour - so picked something similar: a frantic comedy set in Greenwich Village about a man surrounded by beautiful dames. There's even a Bacharach-David theme song sung by Tom Jones.
The central idea though is more Doris Day/Shirley MacLaine/Norman Krasna: Leslie Caron plays a single mother who arrives in the big city of nab a husband for her son. She chases after Robert Cummings, doing a fun riff of Dr Spock as a child rearing expert who hates kids, and is loved by her neighbout Beatty, who makes nudie films.
The film doesn't lean into its concept. It needed Norman Krasna to do a pass. William Peter Blatty wrote it - after his other dud John Goldfarb Go Home. This was called The Babysitter and was shot in London because Caron couldn't take her kids out of the country (her affair with Beatty led to divorce from Peter Hall).
For a while this was pleasantly enjoyable. Beatty was animated and clearly trying in a Jim Hutton style part. Caron was cute, her kid was a lot of fun, I laughed at the baby stumbling into nudie cutie shots. Donald Sutherland is in it briefly (this was shot in London).
Robert Cummings, an actor I like, was looking too gaunt by this stage to play a threat to Beatty. The plotting is frantic as is the direction (Arthur Hiller). It started to grate half way and only got worse as it went on
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