How to Murder Your Wife
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| How to Murder Your Wife | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Richard Quine |
| Produced by | George Axelrod Gordon Carroll (exec.) |
| Written by | George Axelrod |
| Starring | Jack Lemon Virna Lisi Terry-Thomas |
| Release date(s) | 1965 |
| Running time | 118 minutes |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
| 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 It Happened to Jane and Bell Book and Candle.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
Jack Lemmon plays Stanley Ford, a successful cartoonist who is happily unmarried and enjoying all the creature comforts one could desire, including a wonderful butler, Charles Firbank (Terry-Thomas), who takes care of all his material needs. At a bachelor party for a friend, Lemmon gets drunk and wakes up married to a beautiful Italian woman (Lisi) who speaks very little English.
It totally alters his life. He even changes the cartoon he writes (Bash Brannigan) and shifts it from a secret agent to a household comedy. When he begins to have trouble with all of the changes in his life, he concocts a plot, in his daily comic strip at least, to kill his wife.
She takes offense and leaves. Ford is accused of murdering her and disposing of the body, with the cartoons used as evidence at his trial. He ends up telling the jury that he did murder his wife, and that they should acquit him on the grounds of justifiable homicide. It has a happy ending of sorts when his wife returns and they are reconciled. His disapproving butler is introduced to her attractive mother.
[edit] The comic strip
The comic strip art in the film was credited to Mel Keefer.The talented 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 Lemon as Stanley Ford
- Virna Lisi as Mrs. Ford
- Terry-Thomas as Charles Firbank
- Eddie Mayehoff as Harold Lampson, Stanley's envious boss
- Claire Trevor as Edna Lampson, Harold's shrewish wife
[edit] Awards
- Jack Lemmon won the Golden Laurel for Male Comedy Performance at the Laurel Awards.
- Claire Trevor was nominated for Golden Laurel 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.
- The "Glopeda-Glopeda 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.
[edit] External links
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