In the end, the movie exalts the modest pleasures of everyday people, but, along the way, Lewis reveals the madder music within that they whistle while they work.

A bizarre, sexually ambiguous, cantankerously skeptical burlesque on the ascent of feminine independence.

Beyond the range of big laffs Lewis could readily rollick at that prolific stage of his career, there’s breathtaking Technicolor and Lewis’ mastery of the mobile camera. Behold vast ambition and also grace at his directorial command. The nerve of the man!

A masterwork of demasculinization