Due mogli sono troppe

One of those films where non consumation of a marriage is a continuous joke.That is until Griffiths Jones discovers he has an Italian wife.Why any woman in her right mind would want to marry him is beyond belief.He comes across as a young version of C Aubrey Smith.It all tastes like spaghetti and chips

This movie stars Griffith Jones and Sally Ann Howes as a newly-married couple who are honeymooning in Italy, where he had been assigned during the war. He's a rather boring young man, constantly retelling war stories. They call each other darling, repetitiously and, this being an Italian comedy, everything goes wrong, particularly when they get to where they are going and discover that he apparently has a wife and child already.

Like many Italian co-productions, there seems to be timing issues. While Italian comedies are frequently very funny, and British comedies are also, putting a couple of British actors in the hands of an Italian director and expecting them to be funny seems, at least in this instance, to be an utter waste of time as the pacing is far too slow. The comedy aspects are not helped in the least by the Neo-realist cinematography of the Italian DP, Otello Martelli, who might have done some magnificent work on PAISAN, but whose stark black-and-white work here simply works to make everything more miserable.

Maybe this movie works better in Italian. The other reviews didn't seem to see this movie the same way I did, but I watched it with the Italian soundtrack. The Italian title is, Due Mogli Sono Troppe, Two Wives Are Too Much.

I agree that the male lead was less than inspiring, but he executed the film with talent, in spite of his appearance.

Sally Ann Howes came across sweeter and prettier than in the other two movies I know her for, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Dead of Night, although both of those movies are better constructed and are better productions than this one.

There were a number of scenes that had me laughing, if not quite rolling in the aisles.

All of the other characters were very sympathetic and carried the movie along well, particularly the secondary love interests, who I think were better looking than the leads. The townspeople really welcomed the audience into the town and into the movie.

This film is not deep or moving, but it does what it intended. It gets the audience into a fun silly situation and back out again. And while other movies like this can be frustrating, this one keeps the frustrating situations to a minimum.