The Catty Women
After 10 years of happy marriage Kay Hillard (June Allyson - The Glenn Miller Story) learns that her husband Steven (Leslie Nielsen - Scary Movie 4), a New York theatre producer, has been seeing showgirl Crystal Allen (Joan Collins - Land of the Pharaohs). Kay learns of Steven's indiscretion through the grapevine as her friends learn about it and gossip about it long before they tell her. But not all of her friends agree with Kay's decision to divorce to Steven as they think she is playing right into Crystal's hands who is only interested in Steven as a step up the ladder to the life she wants.
I am yet to watch the 1939 version of "The Women" that everyone raves about but have watched the 2008 remake which did nothing what so ever for me. But I hoped that would be a good thing when I came to watch this musical adaptation of Clare Boothe's play as I hoped that having not seen the original this would stand on its own two feet. Sadly it didn't and within minutes of starting it was struggling to keep my interest and despite a top cast it got increasingly harder to keep going.
So what is wrong with "The Opposite Sex", well for me the best way I can describe it is by saving "catty cacophony". Right from the word go the cattiness of the characters and the narration is so over the top that it is never entertaining. But then when you have a lot of characters being catty thats when it becomes a cacophony, just lots of noise and it becomes too much.
The knock on effect of this is that whilst "The Opposite Sex" features a fabulous cast which includes June Allyson, Joan Collins, Ann Sheridan and Joan Blondell none of their characters fully establish themselves. It is a case that between the vicious barbs the characters get lost and it becomes a cacophony of women who are supposed to be friends delighting in gossiping about each other. Having said that it is partly down to the fact there are so many well known names and faces including men in this version that despite the struggles you do keep on watching.
Sadly the problems with "The Opposite Sex" continue and considering we are in musical territory it is lacking in memorable musical numbers which draw you back. Not that the musical numbers are not enjoyable it's just that they end up ordinary.
What this all boils down to is that "The Opposite Sex" didn't do it for me and ends up a forgettable star studded musical which often annoys because the cattiness of the characters is too over the top.
