Brendon Jones
It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.
Usamah Harvey
The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.
Walter Sloane
Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.
Claudio Carvalho
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")
mark.waltz
There's nothing to find offensive in "How to Murder Your Wife" except its almost two hour running time where the funniest thing is the gap in Terry-Thomas's teeth and the droll way he has of saying his lines. He must have improvised some of them because the lack of funny dialog in the rest of the script doesn't belly the wit in his character.Those expecting a 60's view of the theory "Men are From Mars/Women are from Venus" will be sadly disappointed. Even so-called women haters will be furious that the only thing to hate about these women is that they don't warrant being hated, only pitied for being sitcomishly annoying. And feminists too won't find anything new to claim offense to; The men here only bash women for the same argument they have had for decades-being too motherly, coddling, nagging, and lightly controlling. The idea of a showdown between the sexes does make for an appealing black comedy that could have been truly fresh, but unfortunately, the writers wimped out. They only added a lot more sex.While the Doris Day/Rock Hudson sex comedies (without the sex) were the opening Pandora's Box of a slew of similar films throughout the 60's, more films added a lot more eroticism with a European flavor. "How to Murder Your Wife" takes Italian blonde beauty Virni Lisi, throws her in as comic strip writer Jack Lemmon's unplanned trip to a Justice of the Peace, and motivates him to write a series of strips where he reveals a plan to kill off the fictional wife of a bachelor obviously based on him. Lisi gets wind of all this, flies the coup, and Lemmon is suddenly accused of murder.The film is all a cop-out on what could have been a delicious caper that somehow turns out happy. But we've seen the supposedly deceased story before ("Irma La Douce" and "The Art of Love") in 60's sex comedies, and the set-up is so obviously easy to fix that it ends up being predictable. It makes no sense that Lemmon, even intoxicated, would wed Lisi, no matter how much in lust with her he was. Lisi, too, may be desirable, but her character is so cloying that there is little desire for the two to reconcile. Poor Claire Trevor (as the wife of Lemmon's lawyer) has to do a drunken dance that is more embarrassing than funny, and the usually funny Mary Wickes does nothing but cry and drink glass after glass of champagne after Lemmon shows up at his lawyer's office for an annulment. If it wasn't for the fabulously droll Terry-Thomas, this movie would be a total bomb!
federovsky
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.
fabtrick
I'm a big fan of 60's movies - they remind me of my preteen years. I was born in 1960, and watching 60's movies, particularly with Jack Lemmon, is fun. But despite Jack saying this was the best one he did with Director Quine, I wouldn't recommend it. Now I'm wondering, if Jack said this is the BEST ONE, how tedious must the other five movies he did with Quine be!?! This movie is about 30 minutes TOO LONG. There's a lot of filler here - you could boil it down to about 80 minutes and still get the gist of things. Forget about it being politically incorrect - it's a period piece. But it gets bogged down with diversions that don't move the story along. I love Jack Lemmon, but you've got to be VERY patient with this movie to get any enjoyment out of it.
