Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
CW Briggs is a veteran insurance investigator, with many successes. Betty Ann Fitzgerald is a new employee in the company he works for, with the task of reorganizing the office. They don't like each other - or at least that's what they think. During a night out with the rest of the office employees, they go to watch Voltan, a magician who secretly hypnotizes both of them.
A mid-tier Woody Allen screwball comedy that lovingly recreates 1940s noir atmosphere but feels mechanical in execution. The hypnosis-driven plot is a clever conceit but unfolds predictably, and the rivals-to-lovers dynamic is telegraphed from the start. Allen and Helen Hunt have limited chemistry, dragging the romantic tension. The cinematography capably evokes the period but doesn't distinguish itself. The ending resolves too neatly and without much surprise. Novelty suffers because the film is essentially Allen recycling his own nostalgia formula from earlier, better work like Manhattan Murder Mystery, without adding much new.