Comment tuer votre femme

This was the last of the three comedies that Jack Lemmon made in the middle 1960s that he hated. Like GOOD NEIGHBOR SAM (and not like the abysmal UNDER THE YUM YUM TREE) HOW TO MURDER YOUR WIFE had a clever script and good production. Lemmon played a successful cartoonist who carefully scripts and photos the scenes he will use in his detective adventure strip. He lives in a townhouse, complete with top rate valet (Terry-Thomas) and has a wonderful life as a bachelor. But while attending a stag party, he meets Virna Lisi, and takes her home. Apparently he has married her (the groom at the stag party had broken up with his fiancé before the party, and throws the wedding ring out - and Lemmon uses it). As a result Lisi starts domesticating him, and Terry Thomas walks out. Lemmon uses the changes in his lifestyle in the comic strip, but finally he revolts and kills off the comic strip version of Lisi. When Lisi sees this she walks out, but everyone thinks that Lemmon killed her. So the scene is set for a murder trial.

This is not a film for feminists. It takes a dim view at the effect of domestication on Lemmon (and his lawyer, a hysterically funny Eddie Mayehoff). But I point out that before the end Lemmon does admit he misses the domestication. Even Terry-Thomas gives into it at the conclusion. It still a good comedy, a worthy minor work if not one of the high points in Lemmon's acting career.

By 1965 Lemmon had already been in "The Apartment" and won critical acclaim for his ability to carry a dramatic comedy, and notably one loaded with difficult scenes - but then Lemmon was a master of comic timing. In "How To Murder Your Wife" the comedy gets broader, the pacing sputters a bit, and there's Virna Lisi (love her or hate her.) This film is dated, but there's two kinds of dated in the movie world: Annoying Dated and Charming Dated. This one falls in the second bracket. Yeah, it's charming, and therefore one can endure the somewhat chauvinistic bachelor theme. Yeah, its leading lady can't speak a lick of English, but Lisi fills the part to the T. There's better Lemmon films out there. But if you have the time between watching "Some Like It Hot" and "The Odd Couple", you should give this one its 118 minutes. You won't regret it.

The comic strips in the film were actually drawn by the late Alex Toth. Alex Toth (June 25, 1928 – May 27, 2006), pronounced with a long "o", was a professional cartoonist. He began his career in comic strips and comic books but is best known for his animation designs for Hanna-Barbera throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

His work included Super Friends, Jonny Quest, Space Ghost and Birdman.

Toth's work has been resurrected in the late-night, adult-themed spinoffs on Cartoon Network: Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, Sealab 2021 and Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law.

Some newspapers even carried 10 days of teaser Bash Brannigan strips which got sillier and sillier with insider Hollywood comments each day of its' short run.

It was one of those things life blesses us with. - Sparky

I really want to recommend this movie to you.

Sure, it has a weak third act which pounds a particularly misogynistic message. And the end is so formulaic it hurts. But up until then, it classifies as among the best of comedies.

I have a particular admiration for it as what I think is the first example of a cartoonist whose drawings interweave with his life. Its a clever idea at root but handled with extra sophistication here.

The setup is that our hero (Jack Lemmon) is a cartoonist who draws himself in his strip as a sort of James Bond character. But before he draws each strip, he actually acts it out as movies that we see in the movie within the movie. (How he hires the actors and arranges the locations is a detail left unexplained.)

Thus, strip and life have a relationship within the story proper. Much is made of conflating the movie, the life depicted in the movie, the strip, and the movies within.

He ends up with an unwanted (well, sort of) wife and acts out her murder. Since she left in a huff, he has no defense when his readership (the whole country it seems) accuses him of real murder.

The pinnacle of this confabulation comes when his butler comes to the realization that the murder has actually been real with the enactment an alibi. Things go downhill from there. But until that point, this is sublime, a comic "Draughtsman's Contract."

See it.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

A delightfully sophisticated farce written and produced by George Axelrod and very nicely directed by Richard Quine, who seemed to have a knack for this sort of thing. Jack Lemmon is the New York cartoonist and a confirmed bachelor who goes to a bachelor dinner one night and wakes up in the morning married to the girl who popped out of the cake. And who could blame him since she's played by the delectable Virna Lisi who is not only gorgeous but a great comedienne as well. The problem is Lemmon doesn't want a wife, even one who looks like Lisi - hence the title.

Axelrod is the man who gave us "The Seven Year Itch" but this is better. It's beautifully designed and has a great supporting cast. Terry-Thomas is the British butler appalled by Lemmon's newly acquired martial status, the great Eddie Mayehoff is his lawyer, (the movies never really used Mayehoff to his full effect), and Claire Trevor is Mayehoff's wife. It's never as black as it ought to be, (indeed, it's highly coloured in the way many American comedies of the period were), but it's consistently funny and enjoyable.