Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Bluebell Alcock Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Reb9 For some reason I had never gotten around to seeing this film. Unusual for me since I have been a Guiness fan for many years. Now I find that I am rather sorry I bothered. It fails completely as comedy and can only have been reviewed favorably at the time of it's release due to the performances -- all good in a poor cause! The problem begins with a screen play that is strained at every turn. The major flaw is that the Guiness character is a totally unlikable sort. A selfish, petty little man who uses people with little care for them. Not even the great Alec Guiness can manage to make this fellow one that we give two hoots in hell about. The film suffers further from one of the very worst musical scores I have ever heard. It is loud, frantic, intrusive, and very ugly. In the final analysis this is one of the most tedious films I have ever sat through (and I love movies and have seen many in my seventy plus years). I note that a number of those commenting have attributed this film to Ealing Studios. It isn't. It was produced by London Productions (see the details on the main page for this film). For those of you who are fans of Sir Alec Guiness's work and who have not seen this film, my advice is to skip it. Watching it will simply disappoint you.

Richard_vmt This is definitely my favorite British Comedy of the Fifties and like a good comfort food I never get tired of it.The Captain has contrived the perfect life with two wives, the one domestic, the other a night club dancer. One is in Gibraltar,the other a Morroccan port. A good part of the humor derives from the attitude of Rico, his first mate, who invests the Captain's experiment in bigamy with religious import. He pronounces the Captain "a genius" at least a dozen times in the film. For Rico, a Latin sadly resigned to the strictures of matrimony, Captain St. James is nothing less than a savior. On a broader level, much of the humor is aimed at the culture and mispronunciation of wogs in general, whether Rico, Nita, her other 'laver,' or any of the other Kalikan characters. Although the British Gibraltar people are also lampooned, though Majors & Marjories.But what gives the plot a note of divine justice is that the captain's downfall derives from the limitations of his grand conception itself. The human nature of each of his wives strains against the unnatural division of labor which he has crafted for the sake of his convenience. Thus Nita begins to cleave towards domesticity, while Maud yearns for the spice of life. And thus when Maud leaves him as a bore, she perfectly innocently assumes that the substitution of a matron to serve his rissoles will be fully to his satisfaction.Interestingly, while his conventional life with Maud simply comes to a dead end, it is his bohemian life with Nita that leads onward and upward into the next life chapter.

Robert J. Maxwell This really should have been better. In 1953 British studios were pounding out comic hits one after another, but, alas, this wasn't one of them. I saw it years ago and remember being vaguely disappointed. Seeing it again hasn't changed my opinion.There's nothing wrong with the acting, except perhaps that Yvonne DeCarlo (nee Peggy Middleton of Vancouver) isn't very convincing as a hot blooded Latina, especially when she speaks Spanish. The direction isn't bad either. The problem lies with the script. It's just not funny enough.The captain, Alec Guiness, of a ferry that crosses the Straits of Gibralter regularly, from British Gibralter to fictional Kalika, has a wife on each end of the run, ignorant of one another's existence. The wife in Kalika, DeCarlo, loves to stay up all night, dance, and presumably do other wicked things. The British wife in Gibralter (Cecilia Johnson) is straight laced, domestic, content, and the couple retire at 10 o'clock every night.Some gags, not especially amusing, are worked in around getting presents for each of the wives mixed up. The big surprise is that DeCarlo really wants to settle down with a family on a less tempestuous schedule, while the rather boring Johnson reveals a wild side to her nature. Both run off with other men.The authorities at Kalika blame Guiness when DeCarlo is shot by her boyfriend. They go through the ritual of an execution by firing squad, except that the shooters plug the officer in charge of the execution, not Guiness. Guiness pays them off with lots of money, thanks them, and goes on his way.The end.What it reminded me of, more than anything else, were the cheap black-and-white domestic comedies that Hollywood was producing at the time, most of them now deservedly forgotten. The Dagwood and Bondie series. "The Life of Riley." "Bed Time for Bonzo." Hordes of other pre-television examples whose titles I don't want to bother looking up.If you don't expect too much, you won't be disappointed, but God forbid you should compare this to the Ealing comedies of the period, like "The Ladykillers."

theowinthrop I enjoyed this comedy, which demonstrates that one can't have one's cake and eat it too. Alec Guiness has found that he has a perfect recipe for happiness by being a bigamist. He has one wife in Gibraltar (Celia Johnson) and one in Ceuta (Yvonne De Carlo). As his business is running a ferry service between the two cities he has reason to be gone at least a night or two from either wife. He chooses Celia to mirror the perfect domestic spouse, and Yvonne for the perfect excitement spouse. But in truth both women are increasingly unhappy by the uneven state of their marriages. Johnson wants to go out with her husband to night spots, and De Carlo wants to cook him a dinner, and maybe play some bridge or charades with him. Instead of willingly switching the formula, Guiness foolishly prevents both women from getting their desire, and looses them both. Ironically they never discover he committed bigamy.It is not as good as "The Lavender Hill Mob", or "The Ladykillers", or "The Man in the White Suit" or "The Horse's Mouth", but it is as good as "The Card". Although admittedly second tier Guiness it is popular. It is also the only film of Guiness's to be mentioned in the television series "Car 54 Where Are You?". Lucille Toody thought it was so romantic. Imagine Gunther with two wives in the Bronx and Queens?