Few of the rosy romantics who read Austin Dobson, collect bisque statuets of Pierrot & Columbine and attend lectures on the 17th Century harlequinade like to remember that there exists in the U. S.

Critic Cecelia Ager wrote about "Deception," a 1946 Bette Davis film, "It's like grand opera, only the people are thinner. I wouldn't have missed it for the world." That witty, perceptive comment ...