The ghost of Ernst Lubitsch joins the ghost of Henry James to defeat Peter Bogdanovich’s 1974 attempt at a sophisticated 30s-style comedy of manners. More mannered than stylish, more would-be tragic than comic, the film is all surface and comes up fatally short on warmth, humor, and insight. Cybill Shepherd is perfectly cast as James’s guileless, aggressively good-natured American primitive, but Barry Brown is overdirected as the effete young man who loves her from afar. With Cloris Leachman, Mildred Natwick, and Eileen Brennan; the screenplay is by Frederic Raphael (Two for the Road).
