Bogdanovich, a former critic who has spent the last 10 to 15 years absorbing the films of the great Hollywood masters of the 1930s, proves himself a master of screwball comedy -- a genre which, until just now, everybody thought was dead. "What's Up, Doc?" is a homage of sorts to Howard Hawks, but Bogdanovich isn't an imitator so much as an admirer with ideas of his own.
He gives us everything we hope for: a one-sided courtship between Miss Streisand and O'Neal; a spinsterish fiancee for O'Neal; a scene at a formal banquet with everybody winding up under the table; a hilarious hotel corridor sequence, with people popping in and out of doors as the elevator opens; a chase; remarkable coincidences; a staid reception turned into a pie fight, and all the rest.
He also directs with the slapdash economy of the 1930s comedies. "What's Up, Doc?" is only about 90 minutes long, takes no time for sloppy romantic scenes, and remembers to be funny even when Miss Streisand is singing (she reclines on top of the piano, natch).
This is her first outing in a small, totally comic movie. Her previous vehicles have all successfully displayed her talent for comedy but apart from "Funny Girl," the results have been uneven. She has been in too many fancy movie versions of overpriced broadway -- "Hello, Dolly!" was the worst example -- and you can't direct comedy at a snail's pace. It has to move and crackle and not get stuck in the goo of a hit show.
This time, she proves herself as our most accomplished screen comedienne, a title she could have had a long time ago if it weren't for the inflated films she found herself in. She plays what I guess you'd call the Katharine Hepburn role, and O'Neal certainly has it in mind to play the Cary Grant role. Poor fellow, like so many actors before him, he finds that only Grant can quite do that. O'Neal wears horn-rim glasses and tries to be slightly prissy and offended by Miss Streisand's brashness, but we can't believe it.
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