No es dama, es mi mujer

Light-hearted and amusing tale where Martin gets Curtis to pretend he is a member of the FBI to cover up Leigh catching him kissing another girl.

Yes, that's about it but its OK, Tony Curtis doesn't put himself out too much, Dean Martin is his usual cool self and coasts easily enough through the proceedings but it is the energetic and likable performance from Janet Leigh that surprises.

Same year as Psycho!

Worth seeing if you are a fan of any of the three stars. Nothing brilliant but never a dull moment.

The movie defines the word "farce."

Tony Curtis and Dean Martin are good performers, but the characters they play are pathetic. The FBI "thing" gets tiresome. Janet Leigh looks great, as usual. There are few really funny lines throughout the movie, but the viewer can easily get distracted during "dead zones" of absurd planning and plotting.

The highlight of this movie occurs when the Coogle sisters (Barbara Nichols and Joi Lansing) enter the restaurant. The movie is worth watching if only for this one memorable and provocative scene.

I have rated this movie a 6, but I almost gave it a 5.

Delightful marital / spy comedy; Tony Curtis & Dean Martin are an inspired comic teaming (somehow, this was their only film together!), while Curtis & Janet Leigh, who were then married in real life, have a palpable, physical chemistry together. James Whitmore deadpans effectively as the real FBI man, while Barbara Nichols and Joi Lansing almost stop the show (in a positive manner) in the dinner scene. *** out of 4.

Chemistry professor David Wilson (Tony Curtis) gets caught by his wife Ann (Janet Leigh) kissing one of his students. She vows to divorce him. He is distressed and recruits his TV writer friend Michael Haney (Dean Martin) to come up with a story to tell his wife. Michael tells an outrageous tale and Ann surprisingly buys it all.

Times have changed. A cheating husband is no longer so cute. In order to update this, the kiss needs to be shown as all student driven. Only then would anybody root for the couple to reunite. As a comedy of its day, one could see where the fake identity comedy gets its laughs. It works with what it has. Janet Leigh is nowhere near the blonde dimwit that she needs to be. Curtis and Martin are playing it with a wink and a smile. It is a comedy from another time.

I'd always wanted to check out this well-regarded if rarely-seen comedy – for the record, some years back I missed out on its sole Italian TV screening (that I know of). For Tony Curtis, it meant something of a follow-up to the classic SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959) – where he's forced, with his co-star (in this case, Dean Martin), to pass himself off as something he isn't (an F.B.I. agent), leading to misunderstanding, various complications and imminent danger.

Similarly, a female is involved in the shenanigans (Curtis' on and off-screen wife Janet Leigh) though, here, the whole ruse starts off because of her: Chemistry Professor Curtis' fling with a female student is discovered by his jealous wife, so he turns for help to his best pal – TV writer Martin – who procures him with papers (and a gun) denoting his Bureau affiliations; Leigh is finally convinced of this and, soon after, is contacted by a real F.B.I. operative (James Whitmore) who uses her to keep track of just what Curtis and Martin are up to!

One of the highlights of the film is the extended yet splendid incident in a restaurant: Leigh accepts Curtis' excuse to go on the town with Martin, believing it to be another federal job – but, in her over-eagerness to help, effectively blows his cover…which then lands the F.B.I. itself in hot water! The biggest trouble, however, is that enemy agents take the two men to be the real deal and kidnap them (and Leigh) in order to extract vital information they believe Curtis is in possession of! The aftermath of this sequence is again hilarious as, dazed by the drug he's been given, Curtis thinks they've been taken to a Russian sub and persuades Martin to flood it…but it transpires that they're in the basement of the Empire State Building!

The script (adapted by Norman Krasna – who also produced – from his own play) balances witty dialogue with inspired zany situations, which are then delightfully put across by an excellent cast. Both male stars, in fact, were already adept at this type of thing (crooner Martin also sings the title tune), but Leigh surprisingly proves a fine comedienne in her own right: it's a pity that her marriage to Curtis was crumbling by this time which is doubly ironic given the film's plot, but they were professional enough not to let the real cracks show in their performances.