How to Murder Your Wife (1965) User Reviews

A nice sophisticated farce

[MOscarbradley · 7/10 · 5 January 2008]

A delightfully sophisticated farce written and produced by George Axelrod and very nicely directed by Richard Quine, who seemed to have a knack for this sort of thing. Jack Lemmon is the New York cartoonist and a confirmed bachelor who goes to a bachelor dinner one night and wakes up in the morning married to the girl who popped out of the cake. And who could blame him since she's played by the delectable Virna Lisi who is not only gorgeous but a great comedienne as well. The problem is Lemmon doesn't want a wife, even one who looks like Lisi - hence the title.

Axelrod is the man who gave us "The Seven Year Itch" but this is better. It's beautifully designed and has a great supporting cast. Terry-Thomas is the British butler appalled by Lemmon's newly acquired martial status, the great Eddie Mayehoff is his lawyer, (the movies never really used Mayehoff to his full effect), and Claire Trevor is Mayehoff's wife. It's never as black as it ought to be, (indeed, it's highly coloured in the way many American comedies of the period were), but it's consistently funny and enjoyable.

Tries Very Hard -- Too Hard

[[e-mail] · 5/10 · 5 April 2012]

This film strives desperately to be funny and only occasionally succeeds. Oddly, Jack Lemmon mostly functions as a straight man in those moments. The comedy is supplied by one of the other actors: Terry-Thomas as his valet, Eddie Mayehoff as his incompetent, hen-pecked lawyer, Clair Trevor as the lawyer's wife, Virna Lisi as his own wife or Sidney Blackstone as a frequently drunk judge proclaiming that he is "as sober as a judge." The premise -- that Lemmon's character is a dedicated bachelor who accidentally marries the woman (Lisi) that rose out of a cake at a drunken, guys-only party -- might be funny but it usually isn't. Ms. Lisi, an Italian beauty who made a couple of Hollywood films, is asked to be beautiful, speak Italian in rapid outbursts and to perform a sexy dancing routine at one point in the story. She does those three things efficiently. Lemmon's role is absurd to begin with, and it doesn't get a lot better as the film progresses. It doesn't much matter that the story is ridiculous. Many successful comedies are ridiculous. Rather, the film often fails because the effort to provoke laughter is simply too strenuous.

'60s comedy about marriage, women and being single

[blanche-2 · 7/10 · 31 May 2008]

Jack Lemmon is a cartoonist who figures out "How to Murder Your Wife" in this 1965 film also starring Virna Lisi, Terry-Thomas, Claire Trevor, Eddie Mayehoff, Max Showalter and Sidney Blackmer. Lemmon is Stanley Ford, a successful cartoonist of a dashing James Bond-like figure. Ford leads the perfectly structured life in his gorgeous Manhattan townhouse. He has a man servant (Thomas), his weight his perfect, he works out, and he has a nice social life. One night that all changes. While drunk, a gorgeous blond (Lisi) comes out of a cake at a stag party, and Stanley marries her immediately. It turns out she can't speak a word of Englsh. She's an incredible Italian cook so his weight goes up. Under the influence of the domineering wife (Trevor) of his attorney (Mayehoff), she checks in on him at his club and gets him thrown out; she shops until she drops; she redecorates in chintz; his man servant leaves. His life is a disaster.

What Stanley does, his cartoon character does. His cartoon character was a swinging bachelor who got married when Stanley did. Now it's time for the character to kill his wife and go back to being a swinging bachelor. Stanley always does his sketches from photographs of himself actually performing the various tasks in his cartoon. Now he gets a blond mannequin and has the character kill his wife. Just one problem - Stanley's wife actually leaves with no forwarding address, and Stanley has the pictures to show himself killing her.

This film is totally sexist and misogynistic, but despite the weak ending, the concept is funny, and Lemmon is very good as a man watching his well-oiled life unravel before him. It's all about how a woman takes over a man's life and runs the show, and that does often seem to be true, though it's overstated here for the sake of comedy. The secret of any kind of marital bliss is some sort of compromise here and there, and by the end of the film, the characters are coming around.

I'm not crazy about most of these '60s battle of the sexes comedies, and it's no wonder that Jack Lemmon didn't really like making them. This one has some good scenes, like Lemmon being photographed carrying out different situations (with hired actors) for his cartoon. Terry-Thomas is quite funny, Lisi is beautiful, and Trevor is good in the role of an overbearing wife. Mayehoff makes a good henpecked husband.

Pleasant but not great.

Cartoon realism

[federovsky · 25 August 2009]

The comic style of this film is reflected in Jack Lemmon's cartoons; in fact, he creates his comic-strip character, Brash Brannigan, in his own likeness and then tries to influence his own life by changing Brash's. A brilliant narrative trick.

The last time I saw this, adult life lay ahead like a kind of exam. Orange juice in the shower, and beautiful blonds popping out of cakes seemed to be the goal. This film was like a comedic case study in lifestyle management, a blueprint to be stored away - just in case. I liked all the ideas here: the perfect bachelor life, waking up and finding yourself married, the club where you can't be reached - and it's still likable.

Lemmon shows terrific timing with his rapid use of language and gesture that has an amazing flexibility to it - as a technique that is surely unique to him. Terry-Thomas is splendid and quite solid in contrast. Of course we scoff at the idea of a cartoonist living in a townhouse in the middle of Manhatten with a butler, but that's a metaphor for the end of the old days.

The Brash Brannigan shenanigans at the beginning were a little overdone though, and the courtroom scene near the end is more than preposterous - it's post-posterous; the whole murder trial device is weakened by the fact that we know what actually happened - much better if there'd been some doubt in our minds also as to whether he had killed his wife - hard to understand how George Axelrod's script missed that obvious point.

Still, the humour tootles along nicely: the gloppita-gloppita machine; the goofballs that make your wife dance on the table - Brrrrrrrrrrp! - and then collapse - Blapppp!; delicious Virna Lisi; and those in-your-dreams lifestyle tips - it's like re-reading an old favourite comic strip.

Clever, funny, fast, and with lost of 1960s sexist crap thrown in...not my cup of tea

[secondtake · 6/10 · 25 June 2012]

How to Murder Your Wife (1965)

Jack Lemmon is sharp and almost single handedly keeps this deliberate farce from falling completely apart. It's a slick production, very well filmed, but it's also mindlessly sexist from our point of view, and downright stupid at times, too, for other reasons.

That's why a lot of people like it. This is really the flip side to the 1960s, pre-Woodstock. As a kind of set-up for this you might watch the truly amazing 1960 Jack Lemmon movie, "The Apartment," which has different stylistic intentions but has an odd overlap in plot. In both movies Lemmon plays a bachelor in corporate America when a woman unexpectedly enters his life, and his living space.

But how different could two movies be in how this is handled? The earlier one, a masterpiece by Billy Wilder, is about both the shenanigans of the white collar set, and the boorish sexism they drag with them and about an alternative, in Lemmon's character, finding genuine human affection and standing up for what he feels. In this later movie Lemmon's character is just as silly as his peers, and the scenes are variations of girl watching and comic sexing up of this man's manly world.

Granted, this is a comedy, and a clever one. The odd hook is our hero is a popular comic strip artist, and when he gets an idea he enacts it in detail with his butler taking pictures of the scenes. That way he gets fresh ideas on how to illustrate the crazy events, but of course he also has to pretend to do some crazy stuff in public. It's pretty hilarious on that level, and when the problem of the woman enters the equation, he tries to turn it into material for his comics. That works for awhile.

The actors around Lemmon are not all convincing, though his butler is rather wonderfully affected. The women, not surprisingly, are all pretty shallow and decorative, the main one being a true Italian import, the actress Virna Lisi, who thankfully did mostly Italian movies before drifting into television. She is meant to be a Marilyn Monroe look-alike and does pretty well at it, but you do wonder what we need a Marilyn Monroe look-alike for three years after her death.

Anyway, this kind of movie is an acquired taste, and I'm drifting more and more away from this style, having seen a dozen or so in the last few months. Luckily the Netflix version is nice and sharp and is full widescreen. I just can't do as another reviewer wrote, "I laugh I lust," and so I'm maybe unqualified to enjoy this movie, whatever its comedic charms.

No Lemon Here

[bryanmolinelli · 6/10 · 16 May 2007]

By 1965 Lemmon had already been in "The Apartment" and won critical acclaim for his ability to carry a dramatic comedy, and notably one loaded with difficult scenes - but then Lemmon was a master of comic timing. In "How To Murder Your Wife" the comedy gets broader, the pacing sputters a bit, and there's Virna Lisi (love her or hate her.) This film is dated, but there's two kinds of dated in the movie world: Annoying Dated and Charming Dated. This one falls in the second bracket. Yeah, it's charming, and therefore one can endure the somewhat chauvinistic bachelor theme. Yeah, its leading lady can't speak a lick of English, but Lisi fills the part to the T. There's better Lemmon films out there. But if you have the time between watching "Some Like It Hot" and "The Odd Couple", you should give this one its 118 minutes. You won't regret it.

A Truth Universally Acknowledged

[JamesHitchcock · 7/10 · 29 July 2008]

"It is a truth universally acknowledged", wrote Jane Austen in the famous opening words of "Pride and Prejudice", "that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife".

That truth may have been universally acknowledged when Austen wrote those words in the 1790s, but by the 1960s some were beginning to question it. Stanley Ford is a single man with a good fortune, but one who feels no need of a wife. He works as a cartoonist, one whose work is syndicated in 463 newspapers from Bangor, Maine, to Honolulu, and is successful enough to live in a luxury New York townhouse, furnished in a severely masculine style. His life revolves around his work and an exclusive gentleman's club, where he spends most of his free time working out in the gym. He is cared for by an urbane English valet named Charles and his love life consists of a series of one-night stands, referred to but never shown directly.

One night Stanley gets drunk at a party. Upon waking the following morning he discovers that, while drunk, he got married to a young lady. To make matters worse his new wife, although extremely attractive, is Italian and cannot speak a word of English. He considers having his marriage annulled, decides against it, but then finds that his life has been turned upside down. Charles resigns as Stanley's valet on the grounds that he only works for single men, not married couples. The new Mrs Ford (we never learn her Christian name or her surname before marriage) proves to be an excellent cook, but Stanley is not impressed as he is the sort of man for whom watching his weight is far more important than the pleasures of the table. Worst of all, Stanley is expelled from his club when his wife breaches the strict rule forbidding entry to women.

Even his cartoon strip, "Bash Brannigan", changes. This originally featured the adventures of a James Bond-style secret agent, but after his marriage Stanley turns it into a domestic comedy based upon the various mishaps of his own married life. Stanley decides to get revenge by writing a storyline in which Bash murders his wife, but when his own wife disappears Stanley finds himself arrested and on trial for murder.

Whether or not one enjoys this film is very much a matter of taste. It has certainly come in for some criticism on this board, the film-makers being accused of both tastelessness and sexism. Personally, I have always enjoyed it, largely because it stars the highly talented Jack Lemmon, one of the finest comic actors from this period, as Stanley. It is essentially a satirical black comedy, with some echoes of the screwball comedies of the thirties and forties, and black comedy has always been a genre which has enjoyed a certain licence to try and get laughs out of serious subject-matter such as murder.

The main target of the film's satire is the sexism (or "male chauvinism" to use the sixties term) of the entertainment industry. Most of the characters represent the reductio ad absurdum of common stereotypes in the movies and television programmes of the sixties. Mrs Ford is the glamorous dolly-bird housewife (think of, say, Samantha in "Bewitched"). Stanley's meek-mannered lawyer friend Harold is the put-upon, henpecked husband and his wife Edna the monstrous female chauvinist who does the henpecking. Stanley himself lives his life vicariously through his alter ego Bash Brannigan, the tough, ultra-macho alpha male, acting out Bash's adventures in person before drawing them. Charles is the smooth, urbane gentleman's gentleman, with a hint of repressed homosexuality about him. (I wonder if the details of Stanley's casual womanising, and the final scene in which Charles falls for Mrs Ford's mother, were inserted to allay any suspicion that they might be more than good friends). We realise what a monster Charles is when he comes to the erroneous conclusion that Stanley really has killed his wife and, far from being horrified, congratulates him warmly. Terry-Thomas (another talented comic actor) makes the most of this part.

Besides Hollywood sexism, the film's targets also include infantile comic strips, the closed world of gentlemen's clubs and the legal system; the climax comes in the brilliant courtroom scene when Stanley persuades Harold to press a button which will (hypothetically) cause Edna to disappear for ever. There are plenty of amusing lines ("Been married 38 years myself. And I don't regret one day of it. The one day I don't regret was... August 2, 1936") and a witty musical score from Neal Hefti which fits perfectly with the cynical, tongue-in-cheek mood of the film. And those who think that the film is seriously arguing against marriage should remember that Mr and Mrs Ford end up together. 7/10

How to Murder Your Wife

[jboothmillard · 7/10 · 19 November 2007]

It was four stars by the critics, and the two main male stars were appealing, so how could I refuse. The film begins with the butler Charles (Terry-Thomas) talking to the audience about his master, Stanley Ford (BAFTA nominated Jack Lemmon) is a popular comic strip artist who has all his work published in the local newspaper. At a party, with friends Harold Lampson (Eddie Mayehoff) and his wife Edna (Claire Trevor) among guests, Stan meets an Italian girl (Virna Lisi). I might have missed him proposing, but he was definitely intoxicated, and he has woken up married to now Mrs. Ford. She doesn't speak any Engligh, but she slowly learns from watching TV, when he's trying to sleep, and Charles has left until he can get rid of her. As she stays on, and I suppose he tries to accept her presence, more and more disasters occur, e.g. spilling dinners, and all become part of his work, why would he make it if he didn't want to be embarrassed? (Well, he has to make a living) Eventually he sees only one way to get rid of her, murder! That is, in the comic strip. He did want to get rid of her, but he didn't want to make it look like he had made the comic strip into a revealing murder plan and be put in court. The court case however goes really well, he manages to get the courage to defend himself like a real lawyer, he manages to get Harold to pretty much dismiss his wife with the old drawn button thing, and he wins the case on the thought that all men can get away with things if women weren't around to stop them. There is a happy ending not only with winning his freedom, but he accepts Mrs. Ford back (when she reappears), but Charles comes back, and he has his own Italian friend. Also starring Sidney Blackmer as Judge Blackstone, Max Showalter as Tobey Rawlins, Jack Albertson as Dr. Bentley and Mary Wickes as Harold's Secretary. Lemmon and the great gap-toothed Thomas have their great moments, and the court case is probably the highlight. Very good!

When Life Imitates Cartoon Art

[theowinthrop · 8/10 · 17 May 2005]

This was the last of the three comedies that Jack Lemmon made in the middle 1960s that he hated. Like GOOD NEIGHBOR SAM (and not like the abysmal UNDER THE YUM YUM TREE) HOW TO MURDER YOUR WIFE had a clever script and good production. Lemmon played a successful cartoonist who carefully scripts and photos the scenes he will use in his detective adventure strip. He lives in a townhouse, complete with top rate valet (Terry-Thomas) and has a wonderful life as a bachelor. But while attending a stag party, he meets Virna Lisi, and takes her home. Apparently he has married her (the groom at the stag party had broken up with his fiancé before the party, and throws the wedding ring out - and Lemmon uses it). As a result Lisi starts domesticating him, and Terry Thomas walks out. Lemmon uses the changes in his lifestyle in the comic strip, but finally he revolts and kills off the comic strip version of Lisi. When Lisi sees this she walks out, but everyone thinks that Lemmon killed her. So the scene is set for a murder trial.

This is not a film for feminists. It takes a dim view at the effect of domestication on Lemmon (and his lawyer, a hysterically funny Eddie Mayehoff). But I point out that before the end Lemmon does admit he misses the domestication. Even Terry-Thomas gives into it at the conclusion. It still a good comedy, a worthy minor work if not one of the high points in Lemmon's acting career.

The Moralist Conclusion Ruins the Storyline

[claudio_carvalho · 6/10 · 2 May 2018]

The confirmed bachelor Stanley Ford (Jack Lemmon) is a successful cartoonist of the comic strip Bash Brannigan published in 463 newspaper. He lives in Manhattan with his butler Charles (Terry-Thomas), who is proud of his master´s lifestyle. One day, Stanley attends a bachelor party where he drinks too much. On the next morning, there is a ravishing Italian blonde (Virna Lisi) naked in his bed and soon he learns that he got married with her last night. Stanley heads to his lawyer´s office to divorce Mrs. Ford but his lawyer Harold Lampson (Eddie Mayehoff) advises that it is not an easy task. Stanley´s life turns upside-down, and he plots to murder his wife. When Mrs. Ford learns his intention, she vanishes and Stanley is accused of murdering his wife and hiding her body. What will happen to him?

"How to Murder Your Wife" is a funny 1965 comedy that makes the male viewer laugh of the situations. Jack Lemmon performs a confirmed bachelor and male chauvinist. Virna Lisi is extremely beautiful and sexy and disturbs his controlled life. The moralist conclusion ruins the storyline and is absolutely inconsistent to Stanley Ford´s behavior. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Como Matar Sua Esposa" ("How to Murder Your Wife")

Promised a goofy black comedy, we get instead a pedantic treatise on men's lib

[kylopod · 4/10 · 25 May 2011]

At one point in "How to Murder Your Wife," a doctor explains to the unhappily married Jack Lemmon that a pill he subscribes is perfectly harmless unless taken with alcohol. Mixed with liquor, it makes a person engage in strange behaviors before collapsing on the floor. Appropriately enough, the people who made this movie--including, incredibly, George Axelrod, the screenwriter for "The Manchurian Candidate" and "Breakfast at Tiffany's"--must have slipped such a pill into their own drink before working on the film.

I mean it. Quite a few movies from the mid- to late-'60s were like this, showing the influence of, shall we say, something a bit more stimulating than the average pharmaceutical. And while this movie may not be as far out as "Magical Mystery Tour," it doesn't look like the work of a mind that was totally sober. The plot is absurdly illogical in an almost dreamlike fashion, and although it is presented as a comedy, it thinks it has stumbled upon deep truths about the war between the sexes.

Lemmon stars as a popular cartoonist who has performers play out the story-lines he devises, after which he uses photos from the act to help him draw his comic strip, a serialized adventure. This is an intriguing idea, and the scenes involving the design of his strip are the best parts of the film. I wish they had been attached to a movie that maintained this level of creativity throughout.

Lemmon wakes up one morning in bed with a beautiful Italian woman (Virna Lisi) and discovers that in a drunken stupor at a bachelor party the previous night, they had gotten married to each other. This is not exactly an original plot device, but it's something that normally comes at the end of a movie, as a kind of cinematic punchline. It makes for a weak opener, because it's a situation that should be easy to resolve. The lengths to which the characters go to avoid doing the obvious is a wonder to behold. The film is heavy on Idiot Plot--the problem that would go away instantly if the characters weren't idiots--and it continues well beyond the initial setup, all the way to the inane courtroom scene at the climax.

First, there's Lemmon's lawyer friend (Eddie Mayehoff) who is apparently the only lawyer alive in New York. How do we know? Well, for one thing, the mansion-dwelling Lemmon never once considers fishing for a new lawyer, despite the fact that this one is a cartoonishly inept milquetoast kept on a leash by his domineering wife. For another, in the course of the movie he will serve as different types of lawyers, of which criminal defense attorney is only the last.

Terry-Thomas, who narrates the early scenes, plays Lemmon's butler/manservant/photographer. Fearing that the marriage will upset their gay relationship (in the "happy" sense...perhaps), he threatens to quit if Lemmon doesn't have the marriage annulled, which of course is exactly what Lemmon wants to do but finds himself strangely unable to. This is where the film begins to get surreal and dreamlike, as Lemmon can't accomplish what should be an amazingly simple task because all the other characters keep talking loudly over him and not listening to what he has to say except to misunderstand it.

The filmmakers must have gotten so hung up on the central premise--a cartoonist thinking up ways to murder his wife--that they didn't bother to come up with a plausible path to get there. Logic and common sense get thrown to the wind so that the Lemmon character can dream up a murder scenario for a situation with several perfectly sensible alternatives.

I have to admit I expected the murder plot to be more fun. I imagined some elaborate Rube Goldberg scheme (this is a cartoonist, after all), or perhaps a series of plans that keep going wrong. Evidently, it's just not that type of comedy. It seems to promise a colorful outcome with its "gloppita-gloppita" machine shown in the first scene. Though crucial, the machine plays a smaller role than we might expect from a movie titled "How to Murder Your Wife." The film has other ambitions, and they come off heavy-handed and insulting.

Apart from its flaws as a comedy and its far-fetched plot, what really got to me was the film's shameless misogyny. It develops as its principal theme a sort of bizarro reverse feminism, calling for the men in American society to rise up and assert themselves against the women who have enslaved them in unhappy marriages. And this isn't just some self-consciously ironic attempt to turn women's lib on its head: the movie seems at least half-serious on this point. It attacks women's traditional roles not out of sympathy for the women, who are depicted as mindless but malevolent creatures, but to give the men the freedom to pursue their ambitions, such as hanging out with their buddies at their all-male clubs, in peace.

I'm used to seeing older movies with sentiments that now look a bit dated, but I wasn't sure what to make of this one. It came out at a time when many of the old gender stereotypes in Hollywood were breaking down. If the film was intended as a backlash, it's a pretty lame one. I don't know whether the weird scene in the courtroom at the end was supposed to be funny or inspiring, but it succeeds at being neither of those things, and it leaves us with a peculiar feeling of discomfort.

Great fun.

[geoff-161 · 10/10 · 6 November 2005]

Neil Hefti's music is wonderful. He parodies spy thrillers and sex comedies in one clever score. He uses horns for the sex farce and echoes of the same horns for the spy parody. Simply brilliant.

I saw this movie when it came out and I remember more details than any movie I've seen. It made an amazing impression on me - at age 14. I was fascinated by the NY townhouse with that tiny front door right next to the single car garage with the electronic opener. Then there's the glopita glopita machine and the world's most powerful remote control.

And, today, it is still as funny as ever. Terry Thomas as the butler and on screen narrator is bragging away about his all-male world, when... Virna Lisi arrives as Mrs. Ford.

I know that many think it is an unadulterated attack on women, wives, and marriages. But, in an odd sort of way it lays bare the reality of human relationships. Everyone in every relationship that has lasted over the years has fantasized about killing the other person. It isn't a fantasy we want to come true. We've all thought at one time or another, "I'll kill myself and that will show'em!" Remember, that, at every step of the way it is clear that Mr. Ford loves Mrs. Ford - Bash lays Mrs. Brannigan on the bed, covers her with a blanket, and kisses her just as he's off on his caper to murder her.

It is certainly one true that the movie is dated as are 50's and 60's sex farces. But, the thing about this one is that it is so clever and it goes to such extremes even with the title. "How to Murder Your Wife." Indeed! But part of the fun of this movie is that it is so unpredictably predictable. We want to suspend disbelief for this movie. We want to laugh along.

It is said that this is one of Jack Lemmon's favorite movies - except for the murder trial. Funny thing is I thought the trial set the perfect notes for this farcical send-up of male fantasies.

Hilarious!

[alangalpert · 7/10 · 16 April 2010]

This is one of the funniest and best-written comedies I have ever seen. Jack Lemmon is in top form, and Virna Lisi (in her first American film) is beautiful, sexy and delightful. Stanley (Lemmon) is a successful cartoonist and confirmed bachelor. He is ably assisted by his manservant, Charles, played by the always-funny Terry-Thomas. Not only is Charles a confirmed bachelor, also, but he refuses to work for any man who isn't.

After a riotous night of drinking at a friend's bachelor party, Stanley awakens the next morning to find himself married to the lovely girl who popped out of the cake (Lisi). (Ironically, during the party his friend's marriage was called off.) Stanley remembers nothing, and to make matters worse, his bride speaks nary a word of English. Worse still, she hails from Italy where (at the time) divorce is forbidden. Stanley is desperate for a way to end the marriage, and quickly, but no one is able to help him. In a delicious irony, he slowly develops a fondness for his wife, only to have her leave him when he no longer wants her to. I won't reveal the rest of the plot, but the denouement is inspired, and the ending is laugh-out-loud funny.

Isn't Hating Women Funny?

[shaykelliher · 3/10 · 29 August 2018]

Yeah so I was really excited to watch this (Jack Lemmon is one of my favourite actors of all time) and unfortunately it was a MASSIVE letdown. I was at least expecting some sort of passable comedy that we be pulled together by the talent of Jack Lemmon, but alas that was not the case.

The story is really nonsensical. A cartoonist who makes a strip about a detective acts out all the crimes that take place in his story before drawing them. He then gets drunk and marries a beautiful Italian woman who can't speak a word of English. She supposedly ruins his life and then he drugs her, fakes her death (with a mannequin) and is then arrested for killing her. He then gets acquitted because all the men in the jury would also kill their wives if they were given the chance.

So yeah, the story makes no sense, is terribly unfunny and also painfully misogynistic. I get that it's a joke and that I am simply a "triggered SJW" but none of these jokes are funny. The joke of all of them is "Haha, don't women suck?" which isn't very funny... like, at all.

The first five minutes of this movie were really interesting to me, but then it all fell apart after a while. Even Jack Lemmon (who I love dearly) couldn't save this mess of a movie. However the charm that he constantly exudes does make a lot of the dialogue easier to listen to.

Ultimately it's an unfunny, contrived mess of a film with a really charming lead actor and maybe one or two salvageable jokes.

Entertaining and enjoyable comedy

[rgshanks · 22 November 2000]

Entertaining and enjoyable comedy which unfortunately is too long for the premise on which it is based, although Lemmon gives his usual faultless comic performance in the lead role of a successful cartoonist who wakes up one morning to find himself married following the previous drunken evening. However, the high point of the movie is undoubtedly Terry-Thomas' pivotal but underwritten performance as Lemmon's gentleman's gentleman whose concern for his employer's changed circumstances is as much as a result of his genuine desire to protect Lemmon's well-being as it is to avoid his own obsolescence.

funny film

[moatazmohsen78 · 7/10 · 17 November 2005]

This film talk about the style of single life without marriage and this film put a comparison between single and marriage.

jack Lemmoned played this role in a funny way to transport the message of this film without any problem in the understanding of this subject.

The filing of roles was very successfully from big to small actor and this film made an analysis for the spirit of human when he hate his wife and try to attacked her as lemoned and his explanation in the court about the disappeared fact for men and their life with their wives was good scene that answer the end of this husband.

After the court,s decision Lemmoned knew difference between both of life's and she returned to him the sweaty wife the queen of beauty Virna Lisi.

Great movie, ridiculous ending

[riccibilotta-167-829847 · 6/10 · 10 January 2021]

The movie, about a cartoonist, is fun to watch. Lemmon is great as usual. Then after one drunken night at a party, he wakes up to a gorgeous Italian woman. He then remembered he married her. No longer is he a happy bachelor. He changes his comic strip character from a super spy, to a unhappily married man. His new wife, who doesn't speak english, is a sweet, loving and sexy woman. He then has the idea to "murder" his wife (in the cartoon strip). She reads it, is frightened away, and disappears. Great so far. Then comes one of the most ridiculous endings I've ever seen. I don't mind at all suspending belief, but this was too much. I gave it a 6. Would've given it an 8. Still, a fun movie, if you're ok with the ending. Enjoy!

It would have been less disturbing if it actually had a homicide in it.

[GiraffeDoor · 7/10 · 12 December 2019]

As much as I would love to tell people about all the movies above a certain age I enjoy, the truth is I usually struggle to really identify with them, like they're speaking a foreign language without subtitle.

This is sort of the case here but it becomes meaningful in a new way. I'm really not quite sure what to make of what I've seen here. I'm a little surprised that it isn't more famous. It fascinates me how as early as the '60s people were growing quite conscious of the idea of marriage as an oppressive and problematic institution even when feminism was only in its second wave.

With an intriguing opening from the 4th wall breaking butler (played delightfully by Terry Thomas), there is a fairly tedious first act that then livens up when it becomes a rather striking testimony to how deep the gender divide really goes. The story isn't exactly taut: you just have to sort of go with that this sort-of spy is just going to abandon his lifestyle because he bound by paper to this Raggazza.

Now as the titles suggests, we eventually get to the "murder". Well, you may feel a bit cheated and I certainly quite confused about what exactly his intentions were.

The court room based climax of the movie is perhaps one of the most vivid dialogue driven scenes on film. A rather terrifying indictment on the fundamental basis of our society that rotates around heteromonogamy. I still can't quite decide whether its an expose of misogyny or an instantiation of it.

A movie they couldn't make today. It is a celluloid history of dated opinions I am inclined to believe are still there.

A really funny farce

[dave13-1 · 7/10 · 12 April 2012]

The success of Pillow Talk in 1959 ushered in a new era of sophisticated comedies, sexier than the ones of the 40s and usually set in upscale Manhattan. Many of these were actually more clever than funny (mostly because they tried to be tasteful and who really wants that in a farce?). This one still stands up today, and to repeated viewings.

Bachelor and successful cartoonist Jack Lemmon gets drunk at a stag party and inadvertently marries beautiful Virna Lisi, who then proceeds to turn him into the classic emasculated husband at the urging of her 'well-meaning' female friends. His response is to use his cartoon strip to play out a fantasy murder. Things get complicated when the wife disappears and everybody thinks he did her in for real!

Typical for the genre, the central situation is pretty far-fetched. Anybody who finds himself accidentally married to Virna Lisi should invest in lottery tickets, because he's on a lucky streak. And Lemmon's attachment to his New York bachelor lifestyle seems a bit quaint and dated when viewed from the post-sexual revolution world.

Yet, the actors sell the contrived story well, with Terry Thomas being especially fun in the role of a rather misogynistic butler who eggs on Lemmon's murder fantasy. And to be fair the story line is well-worked out as a comedy farce, albeit along 60s sit-com lines. Ultimately it all works because it's just plain funny, with lots of witty material in evidence, especially during Lemmon's murder trial at the end, where he manages to put women and the institution of marriage on trial with him. Recommended.

Watch for the sets, scenes, and not the social commentary

[campbabo · 10/10 · 7 November 2005]

Many will gripe about the sexist views, but watch this flick for the lifestyle that is portrayed. Stanley Ford (Lemmon) works out at his men-only club...in full grey sweats (the scenes in the "gymnasium" are priceless)...then he drives home in his 1965 Lincoln convertible (top down, of course) and parks in his exclusive, street level garage, and enters his wild multi'level bachelor pad...furnished, and decorated to the max. Get over the social stigma, and enjoy the ride, by the way, many of the "wifes" are depicted as much sharper than their dog-like husbands. You have to watch the artwork in Stanley's apartment, the depiction of the "Club", the jogging track, the action at the parties, the booze, the dress....amazing

A Fun 1960s Film -- Enjoyable

[gavin6942 · 7/10 · 4 June 2012]

A man who has set up the perfect lifestyle for himself (Jack Lemmon) makes the mistake of marrying while drunk... and his fantasies of murder are used against him.

Jack Lemmon in a leading role without a co-lead? I think it certainly works in this particular film, where he plays a popular cartoonist with a big of an imagination. And with his sinister, cynical butler (Terry-Thomas) encouraging his worst whims? Even better!

The movie is fun, funny and interesting. It takes some odd turns and relies on legal nonsense for the plot to function. Apparently, he cannot get divorced without grounds... but somehow they overlook that he was drunk when the marriage license was signed, which should invalidate it. And the trial scene later on... wow.

A lot could also be said about male and female interaction, and how women are portrayed here. It is not often in the most positive light. How seriously do we take that message?

Lemmon unable to save this from averageville.

[hitchcockthelegend · 4/10 · 17 September 2008]

Cartoonist Stanley Ford loves bachelorhood, he enjoys his life, he has a butler to serve him, he can get girls, and he likes a drink or two. Then one night he's at a bachelor party and the beautiful Virna Lisi pops up out of the cake, his life is about to change. For when he wakes up in the morning, he finds he has married her, and to compound his problems, she doesn't speak any English.

As a big Jack Lemmon fan I have to say I'm very disappointed in this picture, it's essentially a two joke movie that wastes Lemmon and Terry-Thomas' talent. The first half of the picture plays heavy on the fact that the new Mrs Ford only speaks Italian, this sets us up for a number of funny sequences, particularly when Claire Trevor enters the fray as Edna, but on it goes, and on it goes... We then get to watch as Stanley gains weight due to Mrs Ford's willingness to cook for her new husband, with Lemmon reduced to playing Stanley as an exasperated buffoon, henpecked within an inch of his manhood.

The second half of the picture, as the title suggests, sees Stanley grow a spine and decide to deal with his problem by killing the wife. You would think that this sets the picture up for a number of riotous sequences as Stanley tries to do away with her, but sadly no, it's just the one joke that fails to light up the picture in any shape or form. The run in to the finale is marginally saved by the always reliable Eddie Mayehoff, but come the credits you wonder if the film ever meant to be a full blown comedy in the first place? 4/10 for Mayehoff and Terry-Thomas' opening scenes.

Fantasyland of the 1960's

[jsdinc · 10/10 · 13 July 2007]

I enjoyed "How to Murder Your Wife" immensely. The ordered, luxurious single world enjoyed by Jack Lemmon as Stanley Ford is forever altered by his inebriated marriage to absolutely gorgeous Virna Lisi, the most stunningly beautiful actress of her era. Their love-at-first-sight eye contact scene at a bachelor party is outstanding. The score is fantastic (I have recently purchased a mint LP) and provides the perfect accompaniment to the film. I stumbled upon this gem via DVR last month- see it if you can.

The closing scene is certainly dated and not politically correct, but suspend your disbelief and enjoy the ride.

Brrrrp! Then Blaaaap!

[obozeman · 6/10 · 5 September 2022]

Everything was wonderful-until the court scene; why? I don't get it: I thought Lampson would not push the button, thought that he would say something to redeem marriage, but since he didn't, since Ford didn't, why did the wife come back? And aside from her mistake, was she a bad wife? Not at all.

I have always hated the marriage-is-doom trope in comedies, but normally the story leavens it because it becomes clear that, even in comedy, some men love their wives-but not in this one: Ford never seems to appreciate anything about the girl. Now, I don't like smothering women, but it isn't clear that he feels smothered. The trope serves no real purpose in this film because NOBODY is redeemed.

Two quibbles: what the f is wrong with the people who compiled the credits? No name for the girl with the diamond in her belly button? No name for la mamma?

Hasn't aged well

[dcs-91250 · 3/10 · 23 March 2021]

Even for me (an aged baby boomer) this comedy has not aged well.