"Unfinished Business" is the kind of picture people are talking about when they blast Hollywood for wasting its best talent on inferior material. It's directed by one of the top men in the industry, Gregory LaCava; it's got Robert Montgomery and Irene Dunne, two sure-fire bets for a successful film, in the lead spots. And it still doesn't click.

It's not that this trio doesn't keep up its batting average; it's simply that this time they're playing in the bush leagues. The LaCava touch is still evident, and in places it's beautiful to watch. Montgomery plays to perfection the role of a neurotic playboy, which lie should be pretty familiar with by this time. Miss Dunne is as convincing a small-town girl as if she's just fought her way out of a load of hayseed. But when these three are tossed together in a story that's as depressing as it is dull, the result is far from pleasant.

The story has to do with a small-town girl--Miss Dunne--who decides to have her fling in the big city. On the way there, she falls for a smooth slicker, played by Preston Foster, who promptly proceeds to forget her. From there on, the picture manages to give a dismal view of what "life in the penthouses" can sink to. Everyone hates everyone else; no one, except the everpresent proletarian butler, ever says anything pleasant to anyone else; and more highballs are downed per foot of film than in any movie turned out since Schenley's stopped producing propaganda flickers. Miss Dunne's ultimately successful attempt to get rid of her "unfinished business," which in this case is her still unrequited love for her city-slicker boyfriend, constitutes what might be called the remainder of the plot.

"The Smiling Ghost," with Wayne Morris and Brenda Marshall, is a rip-roaring mystery thriller that packs a lot more wallop than the feature it's supposed to be playing second fiddle to.