I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

During the 1920's, the Mann-Act criminalizes transporting women across State lines for immoral purposes. Nicky Wilson (Warren Beatty) and Oscar Sullivan (Jack Nicholson) are inept con-artists trying to take rich heiress Fredericka Quintessa Bigard (Stockard Channing). She falls for Nicky but he's already married. Oscar marries Freddie in order to run away to L.A. across state lines. Her father threatens to disown her. The boys fight over her for her money.This movie threw me. I expected good characters, and good acting from a Mike Nichols movie but he adds a screwball element to his comedy this time. I didn't see it coming. It takes me a little time to get used to it. I'm shaken by Oscar suddenly walking the wing on the plane. I don't think it's Nichols' strong suit. It's a lot of wacky screwball comedy that don't really generate laughs. The energy isn't there. He needs quicker edits and sharper gags. His brand of comedy isn't quite that. At its core, there are the three great actors and they shine.

A flat-out perfect classic farce. It's a blend of sophisticated and low comedy, delicious, masterful comedy acting by actors at the top of their form. The classic dialogue walks the fine line between silliness and believability extremely well. Photography, production design, costumes and score are all top-flight. The actors have a field day with these larger-than-life but universal characters – they are expert farceurs. Beatty channels Barrymore and gives one of his best performances and he is VERY handsome! Nicholson is equally good in a rare truly comic role, and Channing is just fantastic - she easily earns her top billing (in her first starring role!), as is Florence Stanley as a latter-day Thelma Ritter.It's like a soufflé - delicious but nearly impossible to pull off. Mike Nichols is a genius comedy director (he's not bad with drama either!). This film is incredibly well paced, setting the right tone and balance throughout - it reminds me of Hawks' His Girl Friday and Bringing Up Baby. It has the same twisted logic and just laugh-out-loud humor. It's just really, really funny. It has a terrific screenplay by Carole Eastman, who also wrote Five Easy Pieces (talk about extremes). If 30s films could have been this sexually frank you could imagine Cagney or Tracy in the Beatty role, Cary Grant as Nicholson and Jean Arthur or Irene Dunne as Channing doing this kind of material.I was shocked to read so many strongly negative reactions to this film here on IMDb, but I didn't get this film on my first go-round either. I think it's never found an audience because it's sophisticated and a bit obtuse; also, standards have fallen so low that many people can only accept comedies they've experienced before and feel safe with.I'm looking forward to many re-viewings and sharing it with friends.

I'm not too big on comedies, but this one was recommended, so I watched it when it was run on network TV years ago.....One of the funniest movies I've ever seen in my life. It's incredible to me that it is so underrated..... Not even a mention at any of the lifetime achievement awards for either Beatty or Nicholson. I hate to oversell a movie because it creates expectations that are almost impossible to live up to, so let me just say , "This is a 'good' comedy ". :-)I just became aware that my comment is not yet ready for submission because it does not contain the minimum 10 lines of text , so let me amend my earlier statement....." This is a very very good comedy ".......This is my first comment submission to this forum.....I was heartened to find others who recognized the gem this movie is and I just wanted to add my voice to the positive comments above......But, believing that less is sometimes more , I wanted to encourage others to seek out this movie , without "overselling ". i hope I have done my job :-).

It is easy to see why i had never heard of this movie before because it is so bad and it's hard to see a cast this great in a movie so bad. Hard to believe this was directed by Mike Nichols and stars Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson. The movie is set in the 1920's in which there is a law that saw you cannot take a woman across state lines for immoral purposes. Beatty is in love with Stockard Channing and has Nicholson get married to her and the movie doesn't make it clear why Beatty didn't marry her in the first place. Beatty is going to pose as her brother and they are going to California. It then turns out that both of them are only interested in her money and she isn't too happy about that. The movie is pretty bad and this movie deserves to be unknown.