“An Oscar-winning director, a star and a top screenwriter are called together by old-time producer Harry Pebbel; he is awaiting a telephone call from Jonathan Shields, a producer whom they have all known. Shields needs money and help to begin again, and wants them to work with him. While waiting the three recall, in flashback, their association with Shields.... All three have sworn never to work with Shields again, but when the telephone call comes, it seems that they may change their minds.
“This is a Hollywood story, set for the most part in the studios, bound up with the whole business of making pictures. Clever, sharply observed little scenes reflect the Hollywood surface: the egotistic babble at a party, the affectations of European directors, the sneak preview, the trying on of suits for cat-men in a B picture. If these sidelights sometimes appear conventionally romanticized or caricatured, they are none the less intriguingly staged...(under Vincente Minnelli's direction) which...is brilliantly assured, clever and ingenious.” --Monthly Film Bulletin.
“...A piquant example of what it purports to expose - luxurious exhibitionism...and, for those who enjoy gossip, (there are) incidents derived from a number of famous careers.” --Pauline Kael