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When you see the names Bob Hope and Jackie Gleason, you pretty much expect and instant classic. Well this film was just the opposite, an instant dud. This film was obviously somebody's idea of trying to poke fun at the hippie culture of the 1960's and the whole idea of free love. Unfortunately, by the time this film was made, everything was out of date, even the music and the fashions. You could pretty much tell by this film that Bob Hope's film career was pretty much at an end and that he was ready to concentrate on television. Also, Jane Wyman is pretty much a waste in this film as well as Tim Matheson (its hard to believe he would survive this film and make one of the great comedies of the 70's, Animal House). Also, you pretty much can tell that everyone was just in it for a paycheck. This is one film that definitely hasn't aged well.

Also, WHO THE HELL WERE THE COMFORTABLE CHAIR?

Wow, when you see how Hollywood portrays the social revolution in the sixties, you can see why people had to rebell!!! The writing is definitely in the tone of the grown-ups making fun of the band names during the sixties.

It was surprising to see Tim Matheson in this movie. Also Tina Louise of Gilligan's Island fame. Leslie Nielsen is another one who is still popular.

But who is that sensitive sixties band with the dreamy sound and the groovy philosophy? They're called "The Comfortable Chair" in the movie, but embarrassing as it is to admit, they sound like a real band from the time. Someone like "Small Faces", or whatever their name was.

Bob Hope and Jackie Gleason do spew a few really funny one liners, but the movie has the look and feel of a TV sitcom. Jane Wyman wears the same hairstyle here that she has had since the early 50's and I think she is still wearing it the same way! This movie is harmless fluff, but it is fun to watch Bob & Jackie insult each other. Many famous faces in this movie, Tina Louise, Tim Matheson, Joanna Cameron who later went on to the Saturday morning kids show "Shazaam & Isis". Maureen Arthur is quite funny as a big breasted client of Bob. After Jane gives her the once over staring at her cleavage, Maureen gets off the barb, "Well, it's nothing you couldn't buy"! Many fat jokes at Jackie's expense. Too bad the whole movie couldn't have been as funny as some of the jokes. Still, not as hard to watch as all the garbage they pass off as entertainment today! (Friends, Survivor, etc)

In the intended generation gap comedy, Bob Hope and Jackie Gleason play bickering not-quite-in-laws. I say "not-quite" because Gleason's son and Hope's daughter are cohabiting without benefit of matrimony.

Living in sin.

Shacking up, don't you know.

The kids have a baby out of wedlock and put it up for adoption so they can concentrate on performing in their Top Ten psychedelic rock group, The Comfortable Chair (Cue Cardinal Fang: "The COMFY CHAIR!?!") Hope and estranged wife Jane Wyman (whose real-life ex-husband was governor of California when this film was made) adopt the tot using fake identities and, after a round of 3 a.m. feedings, grudgingly reconcile.

Jackie discovers that Hope & Wyman have the grandchild, revealing the info during a golf match between Hope and a chimp. (You're ahead of me. Bob loses.) But Ol' Ski Nose solves everything by impersonating the youngsters' guru, a Maharishi-like religious leader, at a huge concert. In disguise, Bob tells the kids to forget nirvana and perfect happiness and get married instead. By the time everyone figures out who's who, the rock stars have their baby AND wedding rings, Bob and Jane are back together and the new house Bob just sold Jackie gets destroyed in a mudslide.

Even for a wacky 1960s comedy, the events in this movie defy logic: What adoption agency would instantly hand over a newborn to a decidedly over-the-hill couple? Wouldn't Hope and Wyman face prison sentences for using phony names to get the baby? And how could Jackie Gleason attract Tina "I Trained at the Actors Studio, But They're Going to Put 'She was Ginger on Gilligan's Island' On My Tombstone" Louise?

Hope's probably the LAST guy in Hollywood to have been defending monogamy, given his notorious unfaithfulness to wife Dolores over a seven-decade marriage, and it's doubly offensive that he spoofed an Eastern religious figure to do so. Imagine the justifiable outcry had he impersonated a priest or a rabbi.

Gleason's in decent form but is given little to do. HOW TO COMMIT MARRIAGE isn't as utterly bizarre as another Gleason '60s vehicle, SKIDOO (1968), but simply one of Hope's worst starring films -- a pity, because for around 25 years Hope WAS a legitimately great movie comedian. At least it's interesting to see Leslie Nielsen play the straight man in this film, and the young lovers are JoAnna Cameron (who set the hearts of seven-year-old boys aflutter as ISIS in the 1970s) and Tim Matheson (who, FIFTEEN years after this movie, would still be playing a collegian in UP THE CREEK).

Well, one of my curiosities was settled when I watched this movie starring for the only time Bob Hope, Jackie Gleason, and Jane Wyman together. This one turned out to be Ms. Wyman's last theatrical feature and Hope's penultimate one as leading man. Hope has some pretty funny lines in the beginning and has some good rapport with Ms. Wyman up to the scene when they both dress in the '60s fashion style at a club their daughter (JoAnna Cameron) performs in with her partner Tim Matheson who's the son of Gleason here. Gleason himself also seems pretty funny when performing with Hope in trading insults but after a while, the plot goes in nonsense places like having a monkey play golf with Hope that really gets lame. And don't get me started with Professor Irwin Corey as an Indian-style wise man who Hope later imitates. I did like Hope when he faked a stereotypical Scottish man in another plot point though I don't feel like wasting time recounting that one here. There's also a mixture of film styles like the undercranking of some scenes and the split screen usually presented in these '60s movies that didn't work comically. Still, it was interesting enough for me to see other players like Tina Louise, formerly of "Gilligan's Island", and Matheson-years from his iconic teaming with John Belushi in Animal House, not to mention Leslie Nielson way before his legendary teaming with Zucker, Abrahams, Zucker for Airplane! and the "Police Squad" TV shows/Naked Gun movies. So on that note, How to Commit Marriage is worth a look for those curious of all of the above.