I liked it. It's not cinema history. It's a fairy tale, complete with all the character types of that genre. The soundtrack makes me nostalgic for a time when I was young and dated dumb--well, no--I was the dummy back then (now, too, come to think of it).

The supporting cast did very well with very mediocre writing. Estelle Getty, James Spader, G.W. Bailey--and especially Mesach Taylor (Hollywood) played, respectively, the Fairy Godmother, the Ogre, his evil Henchman--and the faithful Sidekick/Buddy/Wingman. They did so with such panache that they carried the story to the level of farce.

The formula used in the movie for transformation I lost, but the point of this type of fairy tale is that Love does indeed transform people.

There's a lot of bad reviews here, which is unfortunate. The movie was released in time for Valentine's Day. I cannot remember a Valentine's Day where the mood was marked by anything other than the silly, laughing, playful mood that is captured in this movie.

This is obviously inspired by the Kurt Weill musical which replaces the Greek Venus with an Egyptian princess. The film opens up with the very funny scene of Egyptian Kim Cattrall being nagged by her Brooklyn accepted mama (Phyllis Newman) to accept a marriage proposal which causes her to disappear and come back to life as a mannequin in Philadelphia where she is put together by the artistic Andrew McCarthy and later reunited with him at Estelle Getty's failing department store.

The store's creepy boss (James Spader) wants to see the store bought out so he can get a good payoff but McCarthy and the mannequin who comes to life after the store closes help turn sales around with the help of the sweetly flamboyant window designer Meshach Taylor. Spader joins forces with the closeted but homophobic night guard G.W. Bailey to get something on McCarthy, giving this a nice twist on anti-gay bigotry and showing a nice friendship between a straight man and a gay man simply based on human decency.

Then there's Carole Davis, the pretentious sometime girlfriend of McCarthy who wants to steal him for another store and pound the final nail into Getty's store. There's lots of interesting plot twists that makes this stronger than your average romantic comedy and there's a sweetness that makes this loveable in every way.

Taylor's character may have a stereotypical manner but he's irresistible. Getty is nothing like her "Golden Girls" character although she is very sassy when she finally stands up to the nasty Spader who hysterically reminded me of "How to Succeed in Business's" Bud Frump. McCarthy and Cattrall are a delicious team, and their mystical romance is one of the best screen relationships of the 1980's.