Cinema: Coming Up Roses

Sylvia is a puzzle to her husband-to-be, Peter Lawford. She lives in a luxury neighborhood, grows prize roses, displays carefree décolletage, has no visible means of support except for a slim volume of her published poems entitled Moon Without Light. After scanning the verse (Oh preacher, I got these awful blues and a bellyful of sin), Lawford hires Private Eye George Maharis to find out: Who is Sylvia?

She turns out to be Carroll Baker, who dolls up many a flashback as Maharis treks across country jogging the memories of Viveca Lindfors, Edmond O'Brien, Ann Sothern and others. He learns that Sylvia was raped in Pittsburgh in her teens, drifted into prostitution in Mexico, developed a taste for book learning, and graduated to $100-a-night status as a Manhattan call girl employed by a transvestite panderer named Lola. Then a sadistic lover's $10,000 payoff permitted her "to acquire travel, Europe and culture." Finally face to face with his quarry, Maharis discovers that loose morals don't matter much, really, when a girl is endowed with a generous spirit and a love of literature.

Given drivel which follows the plot of Laura right up to the outskirts of Fanny Hill, Director Gordon Douglas (Rio Conchos) makes surprisingly lively entertainment of it. Spirited performers also lend Sylvia a sorely needed touch of class, and Actress Baker schlumps through the role at a wry deadpan pace, obviously enjoying her buildup as Hollywood's sex queen pro tern.