Two male servants (Robert Beltran and Ray Sharkey) at adjoining Beverly Hills households make a bet to see who can seduce the other’s female employer first; the ladies involved are Jacqueline Bisset and Mary Woronov, and friends and relatives in the two households include Wallace Shawn, Ed Begley Jr., Arnetia Walker, and directors Paul Bartel and Paul Mazursky (the latter as a ghost). Despite a partially amusing script by Bruce Wagner (from a story by Bartel and Wagner) and some nice moments from the cast (particularly Bisset and Walker), this campy, irreverent 1989 farce is essentially defeated by Bartel’s awkward and unnuanced direction, which manages to crush most of the gags underfoot before they can blossom. On the other hand, viewers who weren’t troubled by this problem in Eating Raoul may be amused. R, 102 min. (JR)