Long before “Dynasty” and “Kill Bill,” before Jerry Springer or Flavor Flav were even born, Kit Markham and Milly Drake sat alone on top of the catfight pantheon.

The feuding literary lionesses of “Old Acquaintance,” the 1940 John Van Druten melodrama receiving a well-upholstered but nonetheless mystifying revival by the Roundabout Theatre, may go way back together. But that doesn’t stop classy Kit and brassy Milly, gamely played by Margaret Colin and Harriet Harris, from exchanging bitter accusations and even a brief flurry of head-snapping violence.

Should “Old Acquaintance” be remembered today, it’s not because of the original Broadway production, which came and went in less than six months despite the presence of two marquee names, Jane Cowl and Peggy Wood.

No, what little cachet the title still has stems from the 1943 film adaptation, starring Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins. That second-act altercation, mythic among film buffs owing to the real-life animosity between Davis and Hopkins, may sound like a slim pretext on which to base a major Broadway revival. And judging from the evidence of Michael Wilson’s indifferently conceived if lushly designed revival, it is.

The “women’s picture” genre, enormously popular in the 1930s and ’40s, featured an array of women who contended with wayward men and ungrateful children, invariably reaping the edifying benefits of self-sacrifice. Fueled by a wartime surge in both disposable income and increased autonomy among female moviegoers, the genre found a choice bit of source material in Van Druten’s drawing-room sparring session.

The leading ladies in “Old Acquaintance” have the sort of jobs that would appeal to World War II-era women: glamorous, liberating, and unlikely to be reclaimed by returning G.I.s. Katharine “Kit” Markham (Ms. Colin, in the Davis role) writes infrequently, to rapturous reviews and an indifferent public; Mildred Watson Drake (Ms. Harris, following in Hopkins’s histrionic footsteps) churns out a potboiler a year, and while the educated set scoffs, she enjoys what Kit calls “success of the kind that only seems to come with women authors with three names.”

As that barb suggests, envy is a defining characteristic of their thorny friendship. And it cuts both ways: “You’ve spent your whole life counting my blessings instead of your own,” Kit explains to Milly, as Mildred is known. Milly covets the approbation both of the critics and of her own adolescent daughter, Deirdre (Diane Davis), who long ago adopted Kit as a sort of well-behaved Auntie Mame. When it turns out that Milly’s ex-husband, Preston (Stephen Bogardus), also had a soft spot for Kit, Milly’s penchant for hysterics and self-pity launches a wave of high-octane confrontations before the misty conclusion.

Mr. Wilson, who shows a reasonably sound eye and ear for period style, has conspired with the graceful, effortlessly droll Ms. Colin to give Kit a handful of endearing foibles — sucking furiously on a candy cane to ward off a nicotine craving, playfully stomping around in her young lover’s shoes, plucking an ice cube out of her drink to dab her forehead. And costume designer David Woolard takes special pains to boost Kit’s glamour quotient. (If writing a handful of succes d’estime earns you jade velvet gowns, never mind a swank Washington Square duplex designed with bookish panache by Alexander Dodge, who needs success?)

But there aren’t enough ice cubes and fabulous gowns in New York to yank the focus from Ms. Harris’s steely grip. Her experience as an array of madcap matrons in Paul Rudnick’s plays comes in handy here: Ms. Harris treats most of her dialogue to a myriad of decibels, tempos, and octaves, often within the same sentence. When she points accusingly at another character — indignation and high dudgeon are mother’s milk to Milly — the opposite hand cocks ornately on her hip as a cantilever. And as she flies up and down the staircase, skirts and spit curls flying, she displays an expert, naturalism-be-damned vigor not seen since the 1970s heyday of Carol Burnett.

But while her heavy lifting and Ms. Colin’s equally rigorous performance are each diverting on an individual level, the two very different acting styles never meld together in any sort of plausible manner. The anticipated tussle falls flat here, with Ms. Harris forced to ratchet up the hysterics to convey a comparable frisson. And just as the competitive heat is never sufficiently on display, neither is the underlying friendship that would allow Kit and Milly to overcome the jealousies and resentments that all but define their relationship.

When this central component is unable to prop up the narrative, the peripheral romances don’t stand a chance. The amorous complications that ensnare Deirdre and Rudd Kendall (a likable Corey Stoll), Kit’s ardent young suitor, have a jerry-built feel to them. The only supporting player to put a firm stamp on his role is Mr. Bogardus, who positively glides across the stage as Milly’s formerly long-suffering ex-husband.

That character receives a far more developed plot arc in the film, which follows the heroines’ friendship from much earlier in their lives. It also pauses to survey Milly’s outrageously déclassé output: an ever-growing stack of books with titles like “Ermine and Calico,” “Ashes of Youth,” and (my favorite) “Girl Afraid.” But perhaps the most apropos title is “Too Much for Love.” This is precisely what Mr. Wilson’s tepid revival of “Old Acquaintance” fails to supply. Even with the stylish maneuverings of its leading ladies, the authorial and romantic angst on display amounts to not quite enough for love or hate, just a mild contentment that fades from memory faster than a Mildred Watson Drake paperback.

Until August 19 (227 W. 42nd St., between Broadway and Eighth Avenue, 212-719-1300).