A MELODIOUS CONFECTION.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

TO OPEN HIS dazzling dress-up show, ``8 Women,'' Francois Ozon cues up the lush orchestration and gives us spectacularly stylized images of flowers, each more brilliant than the one that came before.

But compared to what Ozon has in store, it's like watching Peter, Paul and Mary warm up for James Brown. With ``8 Women,'' Ozon travels back to those glorious days of Vincente Minnelli's Technicolor starbursts and Douglas Sirk's florid melodramas to give us a movie that begins as something of a hoot and turns into an ever-expanding assortment of delights.

And though Ozon doesn't quite succeed in turning this confection into something that has much meaning beyond its costuming, it scarcely matters. Farce rarely plays this well.

It's certainly a lot more fun than its recent Anglo counterpart, ``Gosford Park,'' which was built around a similarly musty Agatha Christie whodunit but without the bells and whistles that Ozon brings to the table. Another plus: While ``8 Women'' humorously concerns itself with the myriad ways that women can pummel each other with cruelty, absent is the whiff of misogyny that's present in most Robert Altman efforts.

The eight women of the title are the members of the fairer sex who live or work in an isolated mansion in the French countryside. The man of the house has been found with a knife in his back, and everyone's a suspect. The lineup: The grand-force-of-nature wife (Catherine Deneuve), the miserly grandmother (Danielle Darrieux), the bitter and repressed sister-in-law (Isabelle Huppert), two daughters (Virginie Ledoyen and Ludivine Sagnier), an exotic sister (Fanny Ardant), a charming housekeeper (Firmine Richard) and a chambermaid (Emmanuelle Beart) who knows how to turn down a bed and then some.

Ozon and collaborator Marina De Van adapted the screenplay from the 1960s crime play, ``8 Femmes,'' but it's a safe bet the theatrical production has about as much in common with the movie as Demi Moore's ``Scarlet Letter'' did with the Hawthorne book. For one thing, the movie gives each of its leading ladies a musical production number that's designed either to reveal character or hidden moments. Thus, we have the sublime pleasure of listening to Deneuve sing some 38 years after she enchanted us in Jacques Demy's ``The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.''

But while Demy turned tedium into poetry, Ozon mostly aims to entertain. Once ``8 Women'' sets up its situation and characters, the movie is off and running, delirious with its own intoxicating desire to reveal its shocking secrets and show off its women in glamorous ``Gilda''-like fashion. The whole enterprise is so fervently stylized that it's impossible to take seriously - and that's what's so great about it.

Unless, of course, Ozon is after something a bit deeper. (And the ending, a misstep, indicates he is.) But having enjoyed nearly two hours of toe-tapping French novelty tunes and watching Huppert turn in a pitch- perfect performance as the ever increasingly over-the-top harpy, you can forgive just about anything. This is one women's picture worth loving.

8 WOMEN - Three and one half stars

(R: some sexual content)

Starring: Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Beart, Fanny Ardant, Danielle Darrieux, Virginie Ledoyen, Ludivine Sagnier, Firmine Richard.

Director: Francois Ozon.

Running time: 1 hr. 50 min.

Playing: Laemmle's Royal Theater in West Los Angeles.

In a nutshell: Highly stylized whodunit features eight great French actresses emoting - and singing! - their hearts out.

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When her husband turns up quite dead, widow Catherine Deneuve is among the enchanting suspects ``8 Women.''