Una guida per l'uomo sposato

How to cheat your wife without the danger that she ever notices it? That's the big issue for the friends that are surrounding Walter Matthau who thought that loving his wife is the sole thing on earth that counts even if there are other parts of the body that says it differently. Well it's called a sexcomedy but mind you this is as friendly as cinema from the sixties can get but it works brilliant and not in the least because of Walter's great performance.

A movie from a time when "mature" didn't mean graphic. The plot is right out of the buttoned-down 60's -- Walter Matthau consults with expert adulterer Robert Morse before cheating on his wife (a very sexy Inger Stevens). Robert Morse's lessons are illustrated by hilarious vignettes featuring a Who's Who of comedy stars. The Joey Bishop turn on how to handle being caught in the act -- Deny, Deny, Deny is a classic.

Some background - Walter Matthau's character is a successful man who loves his wife (Inger Stevens) - she is attractive, she and Matthau still do things together and get along. She is prime rib, but no man wants to eat prime rib for 50 years.

So a "A Guide for the Married Man" is exactly what the title indicates. On one level, it is a hilarious comedy in which a philanderer (Robert Morse) senses his friend's (Walter Matthau) restlessness, and then proceeds to school him on how to commit adultery safely. Each principle is illustrated by a skit performed by other comedians of the time.

On another level, it actually provides sage advice for anyone thinking about getting a little on the side. That sage advice is, in the words of Micky Rourke in 1981's "Body Heat" about a completely different subject - "This is not (stuff) for you to be messin' with. Are you ready to hear something? I want you to see if this sounds familiar: any time you try a decent crime, you got fifty ways you're gonna (mess) up. If you think of twenty-five of them, then you're a genius... and you ain't no genius."

So this film is not as trapped in 60's sexual mores as other films of the decade, because married men will always want to rent a house at the beach now and then although that does not mean they want to sell their house in the suburbs and disrupt their way of life. Probably making wives nervous for over fifty years, this is a 60s film still worth seeing.

This picture has been on AMC recently. An allstar cast in various cameo roles as Walter Matthau get tips on how to cheat on his wife from the expert played by Robert Morse. All in all for a movie that features this many stars it's not bad. Some scenes are funnier than others. Lots of gorgeous 60's starlets to include Inger Stevens, Linda Harrison, Sue Ann Langdon, Jayne Mansfield, Polly Bergen, Majel Barrett. If you've never seen it it's worth the time.

If you think four teenage guys trying to "score" before prom night is funny, wait'll you see the hilarious lengths married men go to philander successfully! A GUIDE FOR THE MARRIED MAN was the original raunchy sex comedy (without ever resorting to the vomit-inducing scatological humor of recent years), and even after 33 years it holds up fairly well. Walter Matthau plays a neurotic businessman who struggles to remain faithful to his wife while being tempted by his friend's seemingly foolproof program of sexual infidelity. Lots of one-liners and cartoonish humor, and Matthau gives us a character whom we can laugh at and identify with at the same time. One of the best sex comedies of all time, if only because the scene where Matthau is driven out onto the fire escape by a roomful of perky secretaries is ten times funnier than Jason Biggs jamming his nether regions into a baked good.