Little Miss Marker

A calculated line-up: Matthau as a tight-fisted bookie, Julie Andrews as an English Rose, Tony Curtis as a camp hoodlum, and the doe-eyed Sara Stimson as Damon Runyon's Little Miss Marker. The setting is some hack's idea of '30s Depression New York, depressing all right in its complete lack of conviction, and the story is as contrived as the set: a father hands his daughter over as surety for a $10 racing debt, and proceeds to disappear into the river. Matthau, landed with the child and regretting the lost money, is gradually softened up by Childish Charms - though any audience, one suspects, would be left stone cold by this cynical attempt to engage their emotions. A film which aspires to a heart of gold, but is clearly alloy all the way.