Cinema: After the Money Rolled In

Wives and Lovers perkily proves that the eternal triangle is still good for laughs. The triangle consists of Author Van Johnson, Wife Janet Leigh and Literary Agent Martha Hyer, who sells Van's novel to a publisher, a book club, a Broadway producer and a movie company ("Paramount wants it for Burton, O'Toole, Olivier, Loren and Fabian"). Not content with her 10%, she tries to collect the author too.

At first Janet is blind to Martha's designs. She is preoccupied with what a sudden half-million dollars will buy for refugees from a Manhattan walk-up—a rambling house in suburbia, a grove of fruitwood furniture,...