Femmeraderie Outrageous Fortune

By RICHARD CORLISS

Don't-invite-'ems. That was Walter Winchell's term for two people so combustible in their antagonisms that any hostess would think twice before inviting them to her cocktail party. It is also Hollywood's oldest, surest recipe for comic rapport. Hate ya, learn to love ya. Opposites attract. The lady and the tramp.

In this witty, rambunctious caper movie, the lady is Lauren (Shelley Long), a New York City actress who has all the tools -- craft, frosty fastidiousness, a way with an epee and a jete -- but cannot get a break. Her parents won't let her in their house, perhaps because they have already advanced her $32,000 for acting lessons. The only fellow who asks her for a date is a gay actor who wants to do "research" for straight roles. And when she does meet a dashing, sympathetic hetero (Peter Coyote), he turns out to be sharing his favors with a tramp in Lauren's acting class. This would be Sandy (Bette Midler), who has a bulldozer mouth and the sensitivity of a whelk. Sandy wears an earring she stole "off a Christmas tree at Saks." Her toniest acting credit is the porno , epic Ninja Vixens. Her apartment looks as if two clumsy spies have just ransacked it. For Sandy and Lauren, it is loath at first sight. Don't-invite-'ems. In movie terms, they are made for each other.

Femmeraderie -- the complementary palship of two women -- has buttressed many a TV sitcom, from I Love Lucy to Laverne and Shirley to Kate and Allie. But partnering in Hollywood action comedy is usually considered guy stuff. So with a simple twist of gender, Screenwriter Leslie Dixon can give the most arthritic situations a fresh and frisky bounce. She can also fashion smart dialogue, cut to character. Bullying her way onto an airplane headed west, Sandy bluffs, "There's a kidney in Kansas City that ain't gettin' any fresher!" Each time, Sandy brazens the pair in and out of scrapes; Lauren leaps over impossible obstacles. Together they make one dynamite heroine. They also make Outrageous Fortune the best movie about underemployed actors wearing drag to save their skins since Tootsie.

O.K., it's also the only one. And yes, the character comedy here, so deftly planted in the film's first half, comes a cropper as the gals globe-trot, and the spies multiply, and the plot gets pretty predictable. And no, Arthur Hiller (The Hospital, Silver Streak) has never been accused, let alone convicted, of having an elegant directorial touch. Eh -- who cares, in a movie with so many laughs and smiles? If invention occasionally flags, the good humor and friendly feeling never do.

Midler breezes through her role, looking fine and giving the punch lines pop. And Long fills the big screen splendidly. Watch her reaction on meeting Coyote: you can see Lauren falling in love at first sight. The pinched face relaxes, the eyes are illuminated, the heart swoons, but delicately. It's a concise demonstration of behavioral acting at its best. Lauren, you got the job. You too, Shelley. Cheers all round.