How to Murder Your Wife *** (1965, Jack Lemmon, Virna Lisi, Terry-Thomas) – Classic Movie Review 6230

‘WOMEN: WARNING! See It Before He Does! The Wife You Save May Be YOU! ‘ Jack Lemmon is given a near-perfect stage for his comedic skills in director Richard Quine’s teasing 1964 dark-toned comedy about an American syndicated Manhattan cartoonist called Stanley Ford who wakes up after a drunken stag party and suddenly finds himself saddled with a delectable new Italian bride (Virna Lisi).

This is very woman who popped out of a cake and the icing on it is that she doesn’t speak a word of English.

An unexpected beautiful new bride would hardly be a problem, you might think, for a heterosexual hero. But Lemmon’s character Stanley identifies too closely with his most famous comic creation, the dame-hating Bash Brannigan, to consider abandoning the bachelor life and he sets out to get rid of this unwelcome addition to his life. But, How to Murder Your Wife?

Producer George Axelrod’s spicy script’s fascination with Women’s Lib and Swinging Sixties hipness all looks more than a touch dated now, is very anti-feminist and gets in the way of the black comedy. However, director Quine manages to keep the story and the comedy bright and involving.

Meanwhile, long-time acting stalwarts Terry-Thomas as Lemmon’s butler Charles, Eddie Mayehoff as his lawyer Harold Lampson, Sidney Blackmer, Claire Trevor, Max Showalter, Jack Albertson, Alan Hewitt and Mary Wickes bring practised professionalism to what are essentially underwritten, second-string roles.

It is shot in Technicolor by Harry Stradling Sr and scored by Neal Hefti, with production design by Richard Sylbert.

Virna Lisi died on 18 December 2014, aged 78.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6230

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