In his last Hollywood film, Preston Sturges crafts a powerfully rendered mix of slapstick, screwball, and melodrama in his darkest comedy ever. Rex Harrison plays Alfred de Carter, the effete and blas classical conductor returning to New York on the eve of a great performance. Awaiting his return are his beautiful wife Daphne, her coy sister, and her brother-in-law Auguste. Sirk elicits uproarious performances from the dry and evocative cast as the film leads to a masterfully complex climax: Alfred fantasizing variously gruesome, magnanimous, and gallant actions he might take, while simultaneously conducting the symphony orchestra to an enraptured audience.