The comic strip art featured in the film was credited to Mel Keefer, who drew newspaper comic strips such as Perry Mason, Mac Divot and Rick O'Shay. Comics artist Alex Toth did a teaser comic strip in Keefer's style that ran in The Hollywood Reporter and in several newspapers promoting the film for ten days prior to its theatrical opening.
Plot
Terry-Thomas testifying on the stand during the trial
Stanley Ford is a successful newspaper cartoonist. He enjoys his bachelorhood in his New York City townhouse, with his loyal and attentive valet, Charles Firbank. Stanley's widely syndicated comic strip, Bash Brannigan, is a secret-agent thriller, and Stanley insists Brannigan will not be shown doing anything which Stanley himself has not actually done, which he ensures by enacting storylines, playing Brannigan, while Charles takes photographs which Stanley uses as visual references when drawing the comic strip.
While attending a bachelor party for his friend Tobey Rawlins, Stanley becomes intoxicated and somehow ends up marrying the beautiful Italian woman who appears out of a cake, with an equally drunk judge performing the impromptu wedding. The following morning, Stanley wakes up and, even as he gazes at his naked wife sprawled on the bed, bitterly regrets it. Refusing to work for married couples, Charles storms off to start packing. Stanley's attempt to discuss the situation with his new wife backfires when it emerges that she does not speak English. His lawyer, Harold Lampson, advises him that a divorce is not possible without legal justification.
Stanley's new bride is cheerful, affectionate, sexy and a skilled cook, despite only speaking Italian. To learn English, she spends time with Harold's manipulative, hen-pecking wife Edna, who speaks fluent Italian, but she also learns Edna's manipulative ways. Charles resigns, taking a new job with the jilted Rawlins. Stanley now finds his bathroom filled with beauty products and lingerie, and he is kept awake at night by his wife constantly watching television, which she says helps with her English. She keeps a yapping little dog, her Italian cooking causes his weight to increase, and she announces that her mother will be coming from Rome to live with them.
Working at home, Stanley becomes increasingly irritated by the constant presence of his wife, and he changes his Bash Brannigan newspaper strip from the exploits of a daring secret agent to a domestic household comedy, The Brannigans, but it remains wildly popular. In a bid for some privacy, Stanley calls a meeting of his associates at his all-male health club. When Edna learns of the meeting, she telephones Mrs. Ford and arouses her suspicions about Stanley's activities. Mrs. Ford sneaks into the club to confront her husband, resulting in Stanley being banned for violating its "no women" policy.
Stanley concocts a plot in his comic strip for Brannigan to kill his wife by drugging her and disposing of her body in concrete on the construction site next to his townhouse, so that Brannigan can resume his career as a secret agent. As usual, he enacts the events live before drawing the strip, drugging his wife during a cocktail party, but using a department-store mannequin to play out her burial in the concrete from the mixer.
The next morning, while Stanley is sleeping, Mrs. Ford sees the finished comic strip describing Stanley's murder plan. Heartbroken, she leaves, taking only her dog. After publication of the comic strip in the newspapers, and with Mrs. Ford having disappeared without explanation, Stanley is arrested and charged with murder, with his comic strips used as prosecution evidence at the trial. Facing a possible conviction, Stanley takes up his own defense and pleads justifiable homicide, appealing to the all-male jury's frustrations regarding their own wives and marriages. He is acquitted unanimously, and the men in the courtroom applaud wildly and carry Stanley out on their shoulders.
Accompanied by a joyful Charles, Stanley goes home and sees traces that his wife has returned and is in their bedroom. Charles reminds him that killing her now would not have any legal consequences, since Stanley has been acquitted of her murder and trying him again would constitute double jeopardy. However, when he enters their bedroom, he finds her naked under the covers, and she silently invites him to join her, which he does. Charles enters what used to be his bedroom and finds Mrs. Ford's mother, who has arrived with her daughter and is unpacking. Like Charles, she has a prominent tooth gap, and there is instant chemistry between them. Breaking the fourth wall, Charles closes the door.
The film holds a 64% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 14 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2 out of ten. Variety stated: "Finesse and desire aren't enough to overcome the fact that Axelrod's script doesn't make the most of its potentially antic situations." Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote: "Never have I seen a movie, serious, comic or otherwise, that so frankly, deliberately and grossly belittled and ridiculed wives” and “this stuff is funny just so long as one can go with the sour joke—and that depends upon one's tolerance of trivia and also, perhaps, upon whether one is a fellow or a girl".[2]
Cultural references
The film is referenced in Fawlty Towers in the episode "The Wedding Party". Basil Fawlty says: “Yes, awfully good, I saw it six times”. In the Italian version of the film, both Stanley's wife and mother-in-law are Greek.
Fawlty Towers is a British television sitcom written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, originally broadcast on BBC Two in 1975 and 1979. Two series of six episodes each were made. The series is set in Fawlty Towers, a dysfunctional fictional hotel in the English seaside town of Torquay in Devon. The plots centre on the tense, rude and put-upon owner Basil Fawlty (Cleese), his bossy wife Sybil, the sensible chambermaid Polly (Booth), and the hapless and English-challenged Spanish waiter Manuel. They show their attempts to run the hotel amidst farcical situations and an array of demanding and eccentric guests and tradespeople.
John Uhler Lemmon III was an American actor. Considered proficient in both dramatic and comic roles, Lemmon was known for his anxious, middle-class everyman screen persona in comedy-drama films. He received numerous accolades including two Academy Awards, seven Golden Globe Awards and two Primetime Emmy Awards. He received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1988, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1991, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 1996. The Guardian labeled him as "the most successful tragi-comedian of his age."
The Apartment is a 1960 American romantic comedy-drama film directed and produced by Billy Wilder from a screenplay he co-wrote with I. A. L. Diamond. It stars Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray, Ray Walston, Jack Kruschen, David Lewis, Willard Waterman, David White, Hope Holiday, and Edie Adams.
Shadow of a Doubt is a 1943 American psychological thriller film noir directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten. Written by Thornton Wilder, Sally Benson, and Alma Reville, the film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Story for Gordon McDonell.
Prunella Margaret Rumney West Scales is an English retired actor. She portrayed Sybil Fawlty, the bossy wife of Basil Fawlty, in the BBC comedy Fawlty Towers, Queen Elizabeth II in A Question of Attribution by Alan Bennett and appeared in the documentary series Great Canal Journeys (2014–2021), travelling on narrowboats with her husband and fellow actor Timothy West.
Days of Wine and Roses is a 1962 American romantic drama film directed by Blake Edwards with a screenplay by JP Miller adapted from his own 1958 Playhouse 90 teleplay of the same name. The film was produced by Martin Manulis, with music by Henry Mancini, and features Jack Lemmon, Lee Remick, Charles Bickford and Jack Klugman. The film depicts the downward spiral of two average Americans who succumb to alcoholism and attempt to deal with their problems.
Uta Thyra Hagen was a German-American actress and theatre practitioner. She originated the role of Martha in the 1962 Broadway premiere of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee, who called her "a profoundly truthful actress." Because Hagen was on the Hollywood blacklist, in part because of her association with Paul Robeson, her film opportunities dwindled and she focused her career on New York theatre.
Richard Quine was an American director, actor, and singer.
George Axelrod was an American screenwriter, producer, playwright and film director, best known for his play The Seven Year Itch (1952), which was adapted into a film of the same name starring Marilyn Monroe. Axelrod was nominated for an Academy Award for his 1961 adaptation of Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's and also adapted Richard Condon's The Manchurian Candidate (1962).
The Prisoner of Second Avenue is a 1975 American black comedy film written by Neil Simon, directed and produced by Melvin Frank and starring Jack Lemmon and Anne Bancroft. Neil Simon adapted the screenplay from his 1971 Broadway play.
Good Neighbor Sam is a 1964 American Eastman Color screwball comedy film co-written and directed by David Swift, based on the 1963 novel of the same name by Jack Finney. It stars Jack Lemmon, Romy Schneider, Dorothy Provine, Michael Connors, Edward Andrews, Louis Nye, Robert Q. Lewis and Edward G. Robinson.
Cimarron is a 1960 American epic Western film based on the 1930 Edna Ferber novel Cimarron. The film stars Glenn Ford and Maria Schell and was directed by Anthony Mann and Charles Walters, though Walters is not credited onscreen. Ferber's novel was previously adapted as a film in 1931; that version won three Academy Awards.
Harold Teen is a discontinued, long-running American comic strip written and drawn by Carl Ed. Publisher Joseph Medill Patterson may have suggested and certainly approved the strip's concept, loosely based on Booth Tarkington's successful novel Seventeen. The strip ran from 1919 to 1959. Asked in the late 1930s why he had started the strip, Ed answered, "Twenty years ago, there was no comic strip on adolescence. I thought every well-balanced comic sheet should have one."
99 River Street is a 1953 film noir directed by Phil Karlson and starring John Payne and Evelyn Keyes. It also features Brad Dexter, Frank Faylen and Peggie Castle. The screenplay is by Robert Smith based on a short story by George Zuckerman. The film was produced by Edward Small, with cinematography by Franz Planer.
Virna Lisa Pieralisi, known as just Virna Lisi, was an Italian actress. Her international film appearances included How to Murder Your Wife (1965), Not with My Wife, You Don't! (1966), The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969), Beyond Good and Evil (1977), and Follow Your Heart (1996). For the 1994 film La Reine Margot, she won Best Actress at Cannes and the César Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Felicia Farr is an American former actress and model
Ann Way was an English film and television character actress. Born in Wiveliscombe, Somerset, she began her career in repertory in Birmingham in the 1950s moving from there to the Dundee Rep.
The Clairvoyant is a 1982 American psychological horror film directed by Armand Mastroianni and starring Perry King, Norman Parker, and Elizabeth Kemp. The plot follows a New York City detective and his friend who pursue a mysterious "handcuff killer" with the aid of an artist who sees—and draws—the killer's crimes before they are committed.
"Face of a Hero" is an American television play broadcast on January 1, 1959 as part of the CBS television series, Playhouse 90. John Frankenheimer was the director and John Houseman the producer. The cast included Jack Lemmon and Rip Torn.
Melvyn Keefer was an American comics artist and illustrator. Best known for the comic strip Mac Divot, he was a lifetime Inkpot Award inductee.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
