Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II's fifth musical hat opened on Broadway in 1951 was adapted into an opulent Best Picture-nominated film (with Jerome Robbins' choreography) five years later.An amused, cynical, and witty Saunders cringes at the hought of innocent Senator Smith.She assumes Smith's loathsome, corny political leanings are no better than the normal Washington hogwash she has been accustomed to.One of the first remakes about the same topic was the ABC-TV mini-series titledPearl (The Mini-Series) (1978)with superstars of the day Angie Dickinson and Dennis Weaver.His own "practical joke" was designed to give her a taste of her own medicine - and to put her "on the other end of a gag" [a foreshadowing of the film's plot]:Mitch: We met in court.