Description
Peter Bogdanovich’s wonderful “What’s Up, Doc?” was billed as a wacky screwball comedy with absolutely no redeeming social importance, which is just about spot on. It is about four guests who check into a hotel on the same day, with identical red plaid overnight bags. The first bag contains diamonds, the second underwear, the third prehistoric rocks, and the fourth top-secret papers. Are we on familiar ground? The bag with the underwear belongs to Barbra Streisand, a freeloader without a penny to her name, who is hiding out in the hotel and swindling room service out of roast beef sandwiches. She falls instantly in love with Ryan O’Neal, who has brought the prehistoric rocks to demonstrate a theory at a musicologist’s convention. The jewels belong to a Margaret Dumont type, and the state secrets are being tracked by an international spy who believes no one will notice him if he carries his golf clubs everywhere…

