Cinema: Late Bloomer

Cactus Flower answers one of the less pressing but more engaging questions facing America today: Can Laugh-In's Goldie Hawn really act? Yes, she can, and so can Walter Matthau and Ingrid Bergman. With that kind of cast, a Sears, Roebuck catalogue could serve as a script, and Cactus Flower is far more than that. Director Gene Saks is no Billy Wilder, but Wilder's collaborator I.A.L. Diamond (Some Like It Hot, The Apartment) is still I.A.L. Diamond, and he knows funny lines when he writes them. Ornamenting Abe Burrows' stage hit (itself an adaptation...