SPIES, LIES AND NAKED THIGHS

Alan Rossmore (Ed Begley, Jr.) is a translator for the U.N. while his wife Beverly (Linda Purl) teaches kindergarten at a school for the children of U.N. delegates. They live at the International Arms, the zaniest building in all of New York, since every resident is from a different country and slightly off his or her rocker. Still, the Rossmores lead a relatively normal life until a knock on their door catapults them into an “Alice in Bondland” adventure. The person doing the knocking looks exactly like Alan’s old college roommate Freddie Fallon (Harry Anderson), the man Beverly dislikes more than anyone in the world.

However, this man announces (while unpacking his suitcase) that he is not Freddie at all, but rather a top government agent who underwent plastic surgery so as to capture the world’s most deadly assassin, a woman with a penchant for kitchen appliances whose next target is the President of the United States.

Beverly believes not a word–until she calls a number Freddie gives her and speaks to a man that sounds very much like the President. With no choice but to go along, the Rossmores help Freddie throw a party for everyone in the building, on the assumption that the assassin may be one of the women residents. Freddie’s plan is to get their fingerprints on the champagne glasses and compare them to prints from a previous murder scene.

The suspects are a colourful crew. Sonia Vargas is a voluptuous, fiery Brazilian librarian. Hilda Marx is an East German leather merchant whose lipstick is made from recycled diesel fuel and who shares her apartment with her brother, Gunther. When Freddie asks Alan to romance the women in the name of national security, Beverly bristles; and when it’s her turn to seduce Gunther for the cause, she panics.

The zany antics continue until the killer is captured and Freddie comes clean about his real identity. With Freddie out of their lives the Rossmores resume a more placid existence, but they are never sure again what a knock on the door might bring.