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Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Dudley Moore is a television news reporter married to lawyer Anne Reinking (Micki). They are in love - deeply in love - but she is committed to her legal career. This means working overtime on her cases and briefs. So Moore is unhappy about seeing so little of her. He needs to be in a closer relationship with his wife.His producer/friend Richard Mulligan sends him on an assignment to cover a female string ensemble whose cellist is Amy Irving (Maude). In demonstrating how "through the magic of creative cutting" he will be able to appear on camera asking her questions that she answered already, Dudley and Amy start chatting. And he takes her to dinner. And soon they are in love - deeply in love.Well Dudley decides to tell Anne it's all over, but discovers her awaiting him with good news: she is pregnant! Well he can't leave a pregnant wife...so he returns to Amy to tell her it is all over. But she is awaiting him. She's pregnant too! He can't desert her now either. In fact, he has to marry her.As mentioned in another of the various comments here, the opening does drag a little, but MICKI & MAUDE is one of those films that starts slow, and then goes wild. Moore (with some assistance from pal Mulligan) has to marry Amy, and keep her and Anne happy in their separate pregnancies without them knowing of each other. The marriage is difficult enough (he runs into Anne's parents outside of the church that Amy and he are about to be wed in). The difficulties of working enough to support two families (helped out by the fact that both wives are working too) is exhausting - though Mulligan tries to help. Finally both wives are using two obstetricians (George Gaynes and Wallace Shawn) who share the same offices. They and their two patients are kept in the dark, but their nurse (Lu Leonard) is fully aware of what is going on and disgusted by it.A typical combination of slapstick (which Moore handles well) and one liners that Edwards is famous in his movies for, MICKI & MAUDE works very nicely as a comedy. If not the best comedy in Dudley Moore's career, it comes close (especially in the conclusion to the two pregnancies at the hospital - where as a special treat Moore stumbles onto a third, unexpected secret). In the end, facing the wreckage of two marriages or whatever, the three leads have to invent some type of arrangement that will satisfy everyone...or will it?

Five years after the success of "10", Blake Edwards and Dudley Moore hit another bullseye with MICKI & MAUDE, a stylish and very funny romantic comedy about a newsmagazine reporter (Moore) married to a workaholic attorney named Micki (Ann Reinking) who longs to be a father and begins an affair with an attractive and funny cellist named Maude (Amy Irving) who he gets pregnant. He agrees to divorce Micki and marry Maude until Micki announces she is also pregnant. Since Micki's pregnancy is high risk, he doesn't want to stress her out so he marries Maude without divorcing Micki and that's when his life becomes complicated to no end. The three stars are absolutely wonderful in their roles. Moore won a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy. Richard Mulligan, George Gaynes, and Wallace Shawn offer strong support as Moore's boss and as the ladies' doctors. Though the film is a little on the long side, it remains thoroughly entertaining from beginning to end with one of Moore's best performances.

"Did you ever have to make up your mind?/Say yes to one, and leave the other behind..."Rob Salinger's life becomes a Lovin' Spoonful song when the television reporter hooks up with a friendly cellist and they make a baby. Rob, a frustrated wanna-be father, figures he will never get a child with the career-centered woman he is married to and decides to divorce her. But he is hit for a wallop when a rapt Mrs. Salinger tells him that she is pregnant, too, and eager to embrace a new domesticity with him. It's tough enough making up one's mind when there's two people involved, let alone four, and so Rob decides to make a go of it and tough it out by marrying the cellist, supporting his wife, and juggling like mad.A charming Blake Edwards comedy struggles to get out of the gate with some tedious exposition and some disturbing insights into the central characters. Rob's devotion to parenting is mitigated by his deceitful way with women who love him. The cellist, Maude, doesn't seem bothered about picking off a married guy. Wife Micki is so selfish she even goes to an abortion clinic without telling her husband, who in turn has no qualms keeping her in the dark about Maude so he can use her as his personal incubator. Here's a couple both sides of the Roe v. Wade debate can agree on disliking.But a funny thing happens as the film progresses. It gets funny. Very funny. Dudley Moore plays Rob with comic abandon and flair, playing off his character's monomania in such a way we not only enjoy it but come to root for it. There's a great scene with Richard Mulligan, playing Leo his boss at work, where Rob ponders how to tell Micki the truth, only to find he can't. Leo says just tell her the truth, he knocked up another woman and she's having a baby.Rob demurs. That's a little rough.Tell her: "We're naming the baby after you," Leo suggests. Ouch.Also helping a lot are the women in the story, Ann Reinking as Micki and Amy Irving as Maude. Neither are natural comediennes, and Reinking gave up filmwork after this, but both are terrific foils, setting up laughs for Moore and generating some of their own, like with Micki's drug-induced hysteria while in labor and Maude's way of playacting with monster movies on TV. Both also establish a believable intimacy with Moore's character, which makes his dilemma understandable if not heroic.For his part, Moore delivers a stellar central performance, full of heart and conviction, and many painful-looking pratfalls. Only praying mantises sacrifice more in pursuit of fatherhood than does poor Rob.Moore won a Golden Globe for his performance here, a pretty amazing feat given the four other comedy nominees that year were Bill Murray in "Ghostbusters," Eddie Murphy in "Beverly Hills Cop," Steve Martin in "All Of Me," and Robin Williams in "Moscow On The Hudson." That's a Murderers Row of talent, each a career role in great careers, and while I'd pick Martin myself, I think Moore deserved something for his great work. I'm glad he got it.Like many Blake Edwards comedies, this one rolls to a fine finish, actually an amazingly sustained one with two big payoffs, one at a doctor's office where the two women both show up, and the other, of course, at the hospital while both are giving birth. In addition to Mulligan, there's fine supporting work from Lu Leonard as a suspicious nurse and Gustav Vintas as a prickly Germanic doctor. But it's Moore's baby, or babies, and he carries them to the finish line in fine form.The movie's not perfect. The beginning is weak and overlong, as said, and there are some silly bits of Moore at work which feature some labored comedy. Frankly, one reason I'd've give the Globe to Moore is that he had less of a script to work with than the other fine actors, that and Moore never really had any great comedies of his own like they did. It seems fair the underdog won this one time. M&M is a solid charmer, and a nice way of remembering a fine actor at his apex.

A brilliant comedy, which is without a doubt the best film Blake Edwards has ever made. In a Golden Globe winning performance, Dudley Moore is immensely likeable as the hapless Rob Salinger. He is superbly supported by the always lovely and excellent Amy Irving as Maude, while Ann Reinking had the best role of her confusingly brief career as Micki. A sweet, funny and highly original film.