For a comic look at Japanese obsessions in an era of progress, Juzo Itami's recent satires such as The Funeral have nothing on this 1959 film, which also out-Tashlins Frank in its use of wild set-pieces and split screen, and recalls Jacques Tati for creative object-fixations of the very rich. The Western-style home of a real estate mogul is the setting for a plot, hatched by his wife and her sisters, to force their husbands to be more socially responsible by denying them sex, à la Aristophanes' ancient ploy. It seems the developer has plans for land for which the ladies' Lily Society has more charitable uses; his brothers-in-law are, respectively, a restaurateur whose staff are striking for wages, and a sexless scientist pioneering the sperm bank and artificial insemination. Even apart from the priceless image of a woman performing the tea ceremony in negligee and curlers, this is a fabulous study of sex, gender, and power that ranges from low comedy (a whoopee cushion) to high anxiety (a nuclear explosion).