How to Murder Your Wife
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| How to Murder Your Wife | |
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| Directed by | Richard Quine |
| Produced by | George Axelrod Gordon Carroll (exec.) |
| Written by | George Axelrod |
| Starring | Jack Lemmon Virna Lisi Terry-Thomas Claire Trevor |
| Music by | Neal Hefti |
| Cinematography | Harry Stradling |
| Release date(s) | September 20, 1965 |
| Running time | 118 minutes |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | 20p |
| Gross revenue | 40p |
| Preceded by | nothing |
| Followed by | nothing |
| IMDb profile | |
How to Murder Your Wife is a 1965 comedy film starring Jack Lemmon and Virna Lisi. The film was directed by Richard Quine, who also directed Lemmon in My Sister Eileen, It Happened to Jane, Operation Mad Ball and Bell, Book and Candle.
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[edit] Plot summary
Jack Lemmon plays handsome bachelor Stanley Ford, a successful cartoonist who is happily unmarried and enjoying all the creature comforts one could desire, including a wonderful valet, Charles Firbank (Terry-Thomas), who takes care of all his material needs. Stanley lives a carefree life as a single man, attending wild parties and chasing attractive young women etc. However, fate soon intervenes: whilst attending a friend's bachelor party, Stanley becomes very drunk. When the would-be groom calls off his wedding, Stanley drunkenly proposes to a beautiful blonde Italian girl dressed in a swim-suit, who has just stepped out of a large cake. An equally drunken judge (Sidney Blackmer) at the party overhears Stanley's marriage proposal and obligingly performs an impromptu (but legally binding) wedding ceremony. Next morning, Stanley wakes up with a hangover. Lying in bed next to him is the beautiful woman (Lisi) who stepped out of the cake at the party. At first he remembers nothing of the previous night's events. Then, the awful truth begins to dawn on him. To make matters worse, his new wife speaks no English, which makes communicating with her something of a challenge. He tries to get the marriage annulled, but his lawyer informs him that this is impossible.
Marriage takes Stanley's life and turns it completely upside down. His new wife quickly begins to make certain changes to his lifestyle which causes friction with Stanley's valet. Stanley even changes the cartoon he writes (Bash Brannigan) and shifts it from a secret agent to a household comedy. After becoming increasingly irritated by the various changes that marriage has made to his life, Stanley vents his frustrations by concocting a plot, in his daily comic strip at least, to kill his wife and dispose of the body "in the goop from the gloppeta-gloppeta machine".
Stanley's wife sees the cartoon on his work-desk, takes offense and leaves without a trace. Questions are asked, and after reading the offending cartoon the police put two and two together and make five. Ford is quickly arrested and accused of murdering his wife and disposing of the body. His cartoons are used as prosecution evidence at the subsequent trial. After his attorney does a thoroughly incompetent job of defending him, Stanley fires him and defends himself. He ends up telling the jury that he did indeed murder his wife, and that they should acquit him on the grounds of justifiable homicide. The all-male jury is sympathetic because they themselves are frustrated at the way their respective wives have taken all the fun out of their lives. In a gesture of protest and defiance, the jury deliberately finds Stanley not guilty and he is acquitted, released and carried shoulder high out of the court room, whilst all the women look on in stony silence.
The movie has a happy ending of sorts when Stanley's wife returns and they are reconciled. Stanley has gradually realised that he really does love his wife, and that life is far sweeter with her than without her. His disapproving butler Charles is introduced to her very attractive mother who, like Charles, has a space between her teeth. The underlying message is that love will conquer all.
[edit] The comic strip
The comic strip art in the film was credited to Mel Keefer. Alex Toth did a teaser comic that ran in the Hollywood Reporter and several newspapers for ten days as advertising for the film.
[edit] Cast
- Jack Lemmon as Stanley Ford
- Virna Lisi as Mrs. Ford
- Terry-Thomas as Charles Firbank
- Eddie Mayehoff as Harold Lampson, Stanley's envious lawyer
- Claire Trevor as Edna Lampson, Harold's shrewish wife
- Mary Wickes as Harold's secretary
- Jack Albertson as Dr. Bentley
[edit] Trivia
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Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
- During a taping of The Tonight Show, Jack Lemmon told this story. Prior to filming How to Murder Your Wife, co-star Virna Lisi's husband made her promise that she would not be talked into doing a nude scene in her first American film. She assured him that she would not, signed the contract and traveled to Hollywood. While filming the 'revelation' scene, where Lemmon awakes to discover in horror that he got married at the bachelor party, Lisi had to disrobe and lie in the bed nude but discreetly covered with a bedsheet. However, it was this day that her husband, an architect, arrived unannounced at the set to surprise his wife. When he walked into the scene, he became very upset. He focused his anger toward her co-star. Lemmon, realizing that discretion was the better part of valor, exited the set at full run with Lisi's husband in tow. Running past several sound stages on the MGM lot, he quickly found a garbage dumpster, jumped in and closed the cover. He waited there until security officers found him.
- Virna Lisi admitted that she had a big crush on Jack Lemmon and that she found it very easy to kiss and cuddle him in the film. These scenes happen a lot in the film as Lisi's character seems to be obsessed with her screen husband, played by Lemmon.
- In the Italian version, Virna Lisi's character is Greek.
[edit] Awards
- Jack Lemmon won the Golden Hardy for Male Comedy Performance at the Hardy Awards.
- Claire Trevor was nominated for Golden Hardy for Female Supporting Performance.
- Jack Lemmon was also nominated for BAFTA Film Award for Best Foreign Actor.
[edit] Cultural references
- The film is referenced in an episode of Fawlty Towers[episode needed]
- The "Gloppitta-Gloppitta Machine" (a cement-mixer outside the building in which Stanley Ford lives; it was thought to be the place where Ford "dumped" his wife's—non-existent—body) is often used by road work or DPW crews as a colloquialism for a cement-mixer, asphalt-mixer or anything of the like.
- The subsequent cartoon character Zapp Brannigan acknowledges its source by its name if not otherwise.
