This glorious love-letter to screwball movies has more laughs in each of its many set pieces than most comedies do in their entire run-time. Peter Bogdanovich casts Ryan O’Neal against type as an absent-minded musicologist whose life is about to be changed by a gorgeous, brilliant agent of chaos played to perfection by Barbra Streisand. Madeline Kahn is a sheer delight in her film debut, and the stacked supporting cast includes Kenneth Mars, Austin Pendleton and M. Emmet Walsh.
Golden Globe, nominated for Most Promising Newcomer – Female (Kahn), Writers Guild of America, won for Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen (Buck Henry, David Newman, and Robert Benton).