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IF THE finest French silk, spun by the larvae only the most aristocratic of silkworms, could speak, it would sound like Lauren Bacall. Affixed to a body that, in the '70s and '80s, has become the grist for more than a few older woman fantasies, that voice could fill a theater with a dramatic reading of the Globe classifieds. And that, alas, seems to be the theory behind Woman of the Year.

Woman of the Year, now in a four-week pre-Broadway tryout, proves doubly disappointing because it not only fails to capitalize on the allure and talent of Bacall but because it does not exploit successfully an old story that might well have been updated. Based on the 1942 MGM movie of the same name, which starred Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, the musical version keeps the story line almost intact, with the perhaps inevitable change of the lead form a newspaper woman to a television anchor. She, Tess Harding, first insults, then falls in love with a cartoonist, Joe Craig (a sportswriter in the movie), and tries to balance marriage and career.

The story wends its predictable way from hostility to love to fight to compromise, the same pattern as hundreds of movies of the era. Script-writer Peter Stone (who worked from a screenplay by Ring Lardner Jr. and Michael Kanin) might have attempted to elevate the drama from the cliched formula to examine the two-career relationship in the '80s. Stone, however, stuck with the original material, and the show labors with a hackneyed script, enlivened by some snappy repartee, but devoid of anything more than situation comedy level significance.

But on the Great White Way many great musicals have transcended thin scripts. People don't go to a musical for the story; they want Show Tunes, and that is where Woman of the Year falls shortest of all. Fred Ebb and John Kander, who did Cabaret. Chicago and the film New York, New York (which included Frank Sinatra's new theme song), wrote the lyrics and music, creating an inoffensive score without a single memorable tune. It's standard Broadway muzak, which cries out for a powerful voice--at least--to enliven the proceedings.

The voice is not there. Bacall--she of the throaty growl to die for--has only an average singing voice and performs many of her songs in a Rex Harrison-like half song, half speech. Ditto her co-star Harry Guardino, who is best known for helping Clint Eastwood rearrange faces in Dirty Harry and The Enforcer. Because this is basically a two-character show--and because this duo can't dance very well either--the musical end of Woman sinks like a cast iron sax.

Perhaps the producers recognized this might happen, for Woman of the Year is filled with theater gimmicks old and new, all in a fairly transparent attempt to deflect attention from the show's fundamental shortcomings. There are almost a dozen flashy sets, and many use television--remember, Tess is an anchorwoman--to give the stage a busy, electronic feel. And Craig as a cartoonist yields an elaborate set of video projections of his work, including one song during which he does a duet with an animated version of his own cartoon. For all the technological hoopla, the song characteristically falls flat--for the simple reason that a poor singer is doing a dreary tune. The most sophisticated set in the world can't help that.

Woman of the Year does feature a couple of lively supporting players who give the show an endearing humanity amidst all the clutter on stage. Helga, Tess's heavily Teutonic maid (Grace Keagy), has the best lines in the show and steals every scene she plays. And Jan, dowdy wife of Tess's first husband (Marylin Cooper), shares the best moment in the show with Bacall, a duet called "The Grass is Always Greener," in which the two women enviously examine each other's lives. Add a quality chorus (which is on stage far too little, given the musical talents of the leads), and Woman has many of the acoutrements of success but none of the fundamentals.

The producers of Woman of the Year have done all they can to make their show a saleable commodity--and reportedly spend as much as $2 million in the process. A bankable "name," a highly-wrought production and proven backstage performers should have begotten a success. Yet for all its trimmings, Woman of the Year is empty inside, a great big birthday present tied up with a shiny bow, holding nothing but more and more boxes.