How to Murder Your Wife

How to Murder Your Wife.
1965 United Artists; distributed to DVD by MGM.
Starring: Jack Lemmon, Virna Lisi, Terry-Thomas, Claire Trevor, Sidnely Blackmer, Max Showalter
Director: Richard Quine
Available at Amazon as a single DVD or as part of the Jack Lemmon Star Collection with Some Like it Hot, Avanti and The Apartment.

Jack Lemmon is cartoonist and swinging bachelor Stanley Ford, who lives in a luxurious townhouse with his valet, Charles Firbank (Terry-Thomas). Ford is the creator of the comic strip Bash Brannigan, a secret agent vehicle with a surprising amount of realism in it, as Ford never depicts the lead character doing anything physically impossible or using far-out gadgets. Instead, Ford will hire actors and set up future storylines, playing Brannigan himself while Charles takes photographs.

One night, at a bachelor party for his friend Tobey Rawlins (Showalter), Stanley gets plasters and proposes to the bikini-clad Italian girl (Lisi) who emerges from the cake. An equally inebriated judge (Blackmer) performs a wedding ceremony. The next morning, Stanley wakes up with the woman in his bed, and they are legally married. What's worse, during a visit to a lawyer named Harold Lampson (Eddie Mayehoff), Stanley is told that getting a divorce would be impossible without any legal justification. Stanley's new bride, billed simply as Mrs. Ford, doesn't speak English, but she catches on by spending time with Harold's wife Edna (Trevor), and watching a lot of television, which is left on all night to Stanley's chagrin.

Charles takes a job with Rawlins, since he refuses to work for a married couple. Meanwhile, Mrs. Ford informs Stanley that her mother will be moving in with them. However, Stanley tries to adjust to married life, even changing his comic strip drastically: it's now lighthearted comedy and Bash Brannigan is now a bumbling idiot. Mrs. Ford still intrudes on Stanley's lifestyle, and after he's kicked out of an all-male health club when she shows up one day, Stanley needs an outlet to vent his frustration. He kills off Mrs. Brannigan in the comic strip, depicting her drugged on "goofballs" and buries her in wet cement. Stanley also re-enacts this in real life with a mannequin. Unfortunately, this storyline in the comics gets Stanley in huge trouble: first, Mrs. Ford runs off, convinced she isn't wanted. Secondly, Stanley is arrested and put on trial for murder after the police read the comics in the papers and conclude that Stanley really murdered Mrs. Ford!

Can Stanley Ford beat the rap and prove that life didn't imitate art?

Recommended comedy. Jack Lemmon won a Golden Laurel for Male Comedy Performance for his role at the 1965 Laurel Awards. He earned it, folks.