If you've seen musical comedies from the 30's then this will be a masterwork, with careful choreography, great tunes, a classic story of misunderstandings, and all of the trappings you'd expect. Everyone is playing a classic actor role, doing Cary Grant, Carole Lombard, William Powell, etc. I can see why people didn't like it in the 70's, it was just too dated. But for a film buff, it's an amazing piece of work that only someone totally versed in the genre could pull off. This is due for a rediscovery.

When I watched the "Cinema Snob" do a take on "At Long Last Love", I was expecting one of his classic hatchet jobs...but he was actually rather kind to it. So I thought I would give it a go for myself and see if the movie really deserved the drubbing it got from critics like Micheal Medved. Well...yes and no. "Yes", there is something..."off" about the musical numbers. They're leaden, clumsy, and unfocused; they lack the razor sharp choreography and deft vocal performances that someone like Crosby or Kelly or Astaire could give songs like these. (Astaire and Rogers would make gravity and momentum seem irrelevant, but none of these actors are anywhere near their level.)I'll grant you that the characters are supposed to be mostly tipsy/drunk while they are performing them, and if you watch them with that idea in mind...no, sorry they just aren't in the same league as the performances they supposedly pay tribute to. And there are an awful lot of them. And "No"; the director throws so much stuff at the wall that some of it is bound to stick, and some of the material is at least amusing. For that, we can thank Eileen Brennan and John Hillerman (the "second banana" couple) who play the servants/friends that the stars play off and play with. Brennan and Hillerman actually give the best performances in the movie, and in my mind, they bring the thing up at least one notch. And however mediocre the screenplay is, these actors are pros - even at half power, someone like Burt Reynolds is going to be worth looking at. So I'd say that it's not so much that the movie is terrible - it's just a big letdown to the Cole Porter legacy. I'm not sorry I gave it a second chance...but I won't give another one.

While I have to say that Cybill Shepherd's voice got better as the film progressed, nonetheless, this was a miserable 1975 film. 1975. The best picture winner was "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Believe me, you had to be cuckoo to pay admission to see this film.Yes, while Peter Bogdanovich tried to pay homage to the 1930 musicals with the beautiful music of Cole Porter, assembling non-singers to do this, was outrageous at best. Burt Reynolds, with his suave good intentions, didn't have the range for it. Although, it may be said that he could kick up his dance heels. Madeleine Kahn should have been allowed to be her natural self in this one.Eileen Brennan and chauffeur John Hillerman made good chemistry. However, the movie didn't do justice to the period. Mildred Natwick, of all people, played the mother of Reynolds and engaged in the mayhem.The cast sang among other Porter hits: You're the top! This picture was sure the opposite.

Just because you put some popular stars in a film along with Cole Porter's timeless rhythms, it does not a movie make!!! This is one great misfire and frankly the actors embarrass themselves in their attempt to make this worth watching. They may have been having fun but viewers were not. Burt Reynold, Cybil Shepherd and somebody named Dullio Del Prete (rising from and sinking to oblivion with one film) attempt to sing, dance and generally make merry to the songs of the 20s and 30s............and fail miserably. To add insult to injury, director Bogdanovich decided not to post sync the "singing" (I use the term loosely) and being out of breath does not add to one's tonal quality. I won't even mention the "dancing" (again, I use the term loosely). Well, maybe just to say "inept".The only things worthwhile here are: (1) the presence of two wonderful characters....Eileen Brennan and Madeline Kahn. They could make an Army training film worth watching; (2) the great Art Deco sets: and, (3) those wonderful clothes of the time where gowns were clinging and all the women wore great hats.Cole Porter wrote some of the finest popular songs in American music and the great sin here is that they had to be the linchpin of this dog of a film. Mr. Porter is probably spinning is his grave. For that matter so are Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.