When the Mouse Is Away . . .

In the Cool of the Day. The women are all cats in this picture-possibly because the men are all mice. Peter Finch meekly lives with a wife he loathes: he's afraid she'll kill herself if he walks out. Arthur Hill meekly marries a girl who cannot give him sex: she's got lung trouble and shouldn't risk the excitement. The cats make cruel sport of their victims. Angela Lansbury, Finch's wife, viciously insinuates that he is not the father of her son. Jane Fonda, Hill's wife, goes prowling around Manhattan in search of "life"-which in her case may mean death.

Any fool can see that this situation contains the elements of Greek tragedy. Only a big Hollywood producer like John Houseman could see that it contains the elements of Greek travelogue. Jane, a competent mouser, soon discovers Finch, who happens to be an old friend of her husband's. To catch him, she makes a sly suggestion: let's all four of us gad off to Greece for a vacation together. Hill can't go, and in Athens Angela runs off with a traveling salesman. That leaves Jane and Finch to carry on. They try to. But for about 40 minutes, in the middle of the film, Producer Houseman really makes them go through Hellas (Mount Olympus, Delphi, Piraeus, the Parthenon). Every time Jane and Finch get set to snuggle, somebody runs in and hollers: "Hurry up, we're going to the Peloponnese!" Well, finally, the only place left to go is bed. The mood music surges ecstatically up and away. Two days later Jane is dead. It's obvious to the audience that the music is what killed her, but Peter figures he's to blame. Jane's husband, of all people, tries to reassure him, and at this point, a silly picture becomes slightly sickening. The husband is naturally upset about his wife's death, but he doesn't really mind about her and Finch. Anything for a friend.

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