Cinema: Androgynous Farce

Goodbye Charlie. Debbie Reynolds wakes up screaming. And why not? She is in a man's bed, wearing a man's pajamas. When Tony Curtis strides into the room an instant later, anyone steeped in the conventions of boudoir farce knows that her next line has got to be: "What happened last night?" Instead, Debbie gives Tony a hearty, hail-fellow look and asks: "Don't you know me? Look at me, George. I'm Charlie. I'm Charlie Sorel."

Transmigration of souls is not the ideal raw material for a titillating comedy, and after the unsettling revelation of Debbie's...

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