Who Was That Lady?

Who Was That Lady? (1960)

A light-hearted leer at love among the adults!

In order to get back into the good graces with his wife with whom he has had a misunderstanding, a young chemistry professor concocts a wild story that he is an undercover FBI agent. To help him with his story he enlists the aid of a friend who is a TV writer. The wife swallows the story and the film's climax takes place in the sub-basements of the Empire State Building. The professor and his friend, believing themselves prisoners on an enemy submarine, patriotically try to scuttle the vessel and succeed only in rocking the building.

Date of release
1960-04-08
TMDB
6.4 / 10 (31)
Runtime
1h 55m
Genres
Comedy, Romance
Director
George Sidney

Casting

Interesting facts

Who Was That Lady? is a 1960 black and white American comedy film directed by George Sidney and starring Tony Curtis, Dean Martin, and Janet Leigh.

Production

In July 1958, Columbia bought the film rights to the play and hired Krasna to write the script. Hedda Hopper wrote that she hoped the three leads of the play were used instead of stars as "they took a play that wasn't that good and turned it into a great hit". However the stars Dean Martin and Tony Curtis were clients of Lew Wasserman of MCA, as was Krasna – Wasserman had packaged the project with his clients and sold it to Columbia for $350,000.

In September 1958 George Sidney announced he would make the film as part of a three-picture deal with Columbia, along with Pepe and Here Come the Brides. The production company, Ansark-Sidney, combines the names of producer Krasna (spelled backwards) and director Sidney.

In March 1959, Debbie Reynolds signed to star alongside Dean Martin and Tony Curtis. Martin's fee at this stage was $200,000 per film. By May, Reynolds had dropped out and been replaced by Janet Leigh, then married to Curtis.

Filming started on July 20, 1959. Shortly after filming Leigh called it "the best role I've ever had. The girl is really important in the comedy. Quite a few important changes were made from the stage play because of the expanded movie medium... We had a real ball making the picture; we played practical jokes on each other between scenes that kept everyone in good humor. That George Sidney's a doll too."

Leigh confirmed in her memoirs that making the film "was a romp from start to finish... we really rolled with this one. The personal familiarity of the three of us allowed absolute freedom and the interplay was wild and woolly and inventive."

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