How to Murder Your Wife (1965)

A successful cartoonist (Jack Lemmon) enjoys the bachelor life in a posh New York townhouse with a dedicated manservant (Terry Thomas) at his beck and call. But everything changes when he wakes up one morning after a night of boozing to find he's married a beautiful Italian blonde (Virna Lisi) he met at a bachelor party. Written and produced by George Axelrod, perhaps most famous for writing THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH which this movie resembles in many ways. As SEVEN YEAR ITCH was very much of its time (the 1950s), so this film is a remnant of the mid 1960s. The film revels unashamedly in its misogyny. Women are the enemy, who take over and destroy the joys of the masculine life. Indeed, I doubt the film would ever get greenlit today but if it was, I can hear the outrage and hissing from women's groups. Its archaic attitudes aside, the film has a nice polish to it and with the ever likable Lemmon, the arch Terry Thomas and the stunning Lisi as the three leading players, it's easy to get happily duped into it. And there are some undeniably funny bits. Directed by Richard Quine. With Claire Trevor, Eddie Mayehoff, Jack Albertson, Mary Wickes and Sidney Blackmer.