Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

William Denny has forgotten that it is his second wedding anniversary till he is reminded on the phone… he claims to have a present so quickly goes to by one. Unfortunately for him he is followed into the shop by a dog; the dog causes a scene and he ends up paying for the damage and leaving without a present. He gets home, still followed by the dog and his wife, Kate, thinks it is her present and names him 'Archie'. What neither of them realise is that Archie was part of a criminal plot; he was meant to lead one criminal gang to another… now they are keen to get him back. William intends to return the dog to its rightful owner but is soon caught up in events that see him suspected of murder as he has trouble with the police, smugglers and counterfeiters.This comedy is definitely silly at times; in fact it is silly most of the time but I still thought it had sufficient genuinely funny moments to have been worth watching. The story is simple enough but it is told in such a way that makes it understandable that everybody caught up in the events is utterly confused. Unlike most canine capers the dog causes so much chaos that it isn't a surprise when William does not end up loving the mutt by the end. Farley Granger does a fine job as William; he may overplay things at times but that fits with the tone of the film. Shelley Winters is solid as his wife and Margalo Gillmore is entertaining as William's battle-axe of a mother in law, in whose house they live. Overall this isn't a must see but it is certainly amusing enough and doesn't contain any material likely to offend.

When you think of comedy, you don't normally think of Farley Granger nor Shelly Winters. Neither (especially Granger) were terribly funny people and here the film just seems forced...and annoying.When the film begins, some gangsters have a dumb idea to use a dog to pass on information. But things go awry and the dog instead follows Bill (Granger) home. Eventually, this all leads to murders, some counterfeit money as well as the police. None of this film is funny and again and again they chose to be loud instead of funny. Winters and Granger yell a lot as well as horribly overact...so much so that the film was very difficult to enjoy. Overall, a very forced and unfunny film.

One of the best supporting casts of familiar character players this side of a Frank Capra film is the best thing that Behave Yourself has going for it. When any of them are on the screen they make up for the fact that leads Farley Granger and Shelley Winters have absolutely no chemistry between them.Behave Yourself finds Farley Granger getting adopted by Welsh terrier named Archie who follows him home. The dog has been trained as a courier among groups of gangsters, but he decides he likes Mr. Average Guy Granger instead. When he gets home the wife thinks that the terrier is an anniversary present. But now all kinds of strange and sinister people are contacting Granger about the dog. The police have taken an interest in him as well.Any film that has Francis L. Sullivan, Sheldon Leonard, Hans Conreid, Marvin Kaplan, Lon Chaney, Jr., Elisha Cook, Jr., William Demarest, Margalo Gilmore, etc. is worth a look. But the core of the film, the leads just aren't up to the light touch this comedy needs.

A young husband's plans of conjugal love are constantly discouraged by various facts—like the appearance and pranks of a Welsh terrier. His access to his pretty wife is severely restricted by adverse circumstances. BEHAVE YOURSELF belongs to a hybrid genre, the 'crime and conjugal comedy'. The crime plot is convoluted enough to be a sequel to the MALTESE FALCON. Young Farley was the consummate opposite of Bogart; neurotic, coward, etc., in fact a man who loved peace and his wife.The couple of youngsters who hold the stage in the old fashioned macabre comedy BEHAVE YOURSELF was, at least partly, well chosen. Farley Granger and Shelley Winters are the young couple caught between rival gangs who sought to eliminate each other. She's not exactly Eve Marie Saint, he's not exactly Lemmon, but she played in NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, he was a Hitchcock actor …, which kind of qualifies them for such a tenebrous comedy where the underworld and the bourgeois meet; none of them made it to the first ranks of the stardom.By the time BEHAVE YOURSELF was made, Granger (--who had already appeared in both those Hitchcock movies--) and Winters were very good friends, they went together to New York and took classes at the Actors Studio; they became lovers, he had affairs with Ava and with Marais, she had an affair with Gassman, and were later reunited for another movie.By the time they made BEHAVE YOURSELF, Granger's career was practically over; Shelley still had a future. Granger shone only on Hitchcock's sets; Shelley had yet to give her important roles and had a career ahead.It can be said that Farley overacts a bit and that, while full of the youth's charm, he wasn't, because of his more introspective and neurotic nature, put by Hitchcock to good use, exactly fit for the snappy style of such a mordant comedy.Elisha Cook Jr., Lon Chaney do the respective stock characters.There's also a cute, naughty Welsh terrier.BEHAVE YOURSELF is, stylistically, quite exciting and accomplished; the comedies of the early '50s often reached this level of nonchalant charm. Lemmon did a couple of those.Funny, nonsensical and lively, with an admirable pace, BEHAVE YOURSELF has gusto and brio, the plot is absurdly Maltese, and Shelley seems better than Granger who, as I said, sometimes loads his performance with overacting. If taken for what it is—an unpretentious small comedy about a family's meeting with the underworld—BEHAVE YOURSELF proves enjoyable.