What a disappointment! Suzanne Pleshette playing a nymphomaniac sounds like fun, but to judge from the end result John O'Hara's 1949 novel has been so bowdlerised its hard to understand why they bothered to film it in the first place, other than the fact that 'Butterfield 8' had just been such a hit; but it's even less explicit than that. The word "slut" is liberally sprinkled throughout the film, but although we're told that there are plenty of others we actually see very little sign that there have really been that many lovers - and even less love; and it seems to be the men who always hit on her first. She actually seems to be suffering from the much more common female problem of not being able to say 'No' to jerks rather than clinical nymphomania. If only nasty Ben Gazzara had left her alone, and if Peter Graves' wife hadn't been such a belligerent lush, life would have continued to be peachy for the lovely Ms Pleshette and she would have lived happily ever after with hubby Bradford Dillman, her lovely child and her Oscar nominated wardrobe.
As is often the case with material like this the most interesting characters are the women, and there are entertaining cameos by Brett Somers and Bethel Leslie as two vengeful harpies; the former as the disapproving mother of Pleshette's first real squeeze, Mark Goddard (best remembered as Don West in 'Lost in Space'), and the latter as Graves' jealous wife whose drama queen antics end up bringing the whole edifice crashing down.
As is often the case with material like this the most interesting characters are the women, and there are entertaining cameos by Brett Somers and Bethel Leslie as two vengeful harpies; the former as the disapproving mother of Pleshette's first real squeeze, Mark Goddard (best remembered as Don West in 'Lost in Space'), and the latter as Graves' jealous wife whose drama queen antics end up bringing the whole edifice crashing down.