an incredible achievement . my mind boggles at the amount of thought and time and effort that must have go into this superb film . the plot be brilliantly and hilariously convolute and with screen legend from the 1940s make appearance in amazingly edit scene and and steve martin trademark absurd humour be present almost all the way . steve and rachel ward have remarkable chemistry and and each of their performance be highly impressive . if it weren not for the bundle of humour employ and one would almost think at time that this actually be a film noir from the 1940s and so legitimate and believable be the feel or the atmosphere of the film . i can not believe that some people who comment on this film have say that the plot be merely an excuse to hang old movie clip onto and and not much use at all while and the person who claim that steve martin overacts in this movie mustn not realise that this be regard a one of steve more restrained and deadpan comedic performance ( the cleaning woman . device turn out to be an important part of the plot and also seem to be a way of use the strangle scene that be take from the bette davis movie it be also a chance for steve to get in a very tiny element of his wild and crazy guy persona and which he substitute with a more suitable [ for parody ] traight performance ) . a rousing and side splittingly funny success they do not make em like this anymore .