n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.
View MoreEach character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
View MoreClose shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.
View MoreThis is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
View MoreHow to Murder Your Wife (1965)Jack Lemmon is sharp and almost single handedly keeps this deliberate farce from falling completely apart. It's a slick production, very well filmed, but it's also mindlessly sexist from our point of view, and downright stupid at times, too, for other reasons.That's why a lot of people like it. This is really the flip side to the 1960s, pre-Woodstock. As a kind of set-up for this you might watch the truly amazing 1960 Jack Lemmon movie, "The Apartment," which has different stylistic intentions but has an odd overlap in plot. In both movies Lemmon plays a bachelor in corporate America when a woman unexpectedly enters his life, and his living space. But how different could two movies be in how this is handled? The earlier one, a masterpiece by Billy Wilder, is about both the shenanigans of the white collar set, and the boorish sexism they drag with them and about an alternative, in Lemmon's character, finding genuine human affection and standing up for what he feels. In this later movie Lemmon's character is just as silly as his peers, and the scenes are variations of girl watching and comic sexing up of this man's manly world.Granted, this is a comedy, and a clever one. The odd hook is our hero is a popular comic strip artist, and when he gets an idea he enacts it in detail with his butler taking pictures of the scenes. That way he gets fresh ideas on how to illustrate the crazy events, but of course he also has to pretend to do some crazy stuff in public. It's pretty hilarious on that level, and when the problem of the woman enters the equation, he tries to turn it into material for his comics. That works for awhile.The actors around Lemmon are not all convincing, though his butler is rather wonderfully affected. The women, not surprisingly, are all pretty shallow and decorative, the main one being a true Italian import, the actress Virna Lisi, who thankfully did mostly Italian movies before drifting into television. She is meant to be a Marilyn Monroe look-alike and does pretty well at it, but you do wonder what we need a Marilyn Monroe look-alike for three years after her death.Anyway, this kind of movie is an acquired taste, and I'm drifting more and more away from this style, having seen a dozen or so in the last few months. Luckily the Netflix version is nice and sharp and is full widescreen. I just can't do as another reviewer wrote, "I laugh I lust," and so I'm maybe unqualified to enjoy this movie, whatever its comedic charms.
View MoreThe comic style of this film is reflected in Jack Lemmon's cartoons; in fact, he creates his comic-strip character, Brash Brannigan, in his own likeness and then tries to influence his own life by changing Brash's. A brilliant narrative trick. The last time I saw this, adult life lay ahead like a kind of exam. Orange juice in the shower, and beautiful blonds popping out of cakes seemed to be the goal. This film was like a comedic case study in lifestyle management, a blueprint to be stored away - just in case. I liked all the ideas here: the perfect bachelor life, waking up and finding yourself married, the club where you can't be reached - and it's still likable. Lemmon shows terrific timing with his rapid use of language and gesture that has an amazing flexibility to it - as a technique that is surely unique to him. Terry-Thomas is splendid and quite solid in contrast. Of course we scoff at the idea of a cartoonist living in a townhouse in the middle of Manhatten with a butler, but that's a metaphor for the end of the old days. The Brash Brannigan shenanigans at the beginning were a little overdone though, and the courtroom scene near the end is more than preposterous - it's post-posterous; the whole murder trial device is weakened by the fact that we know what actually happened - much better if there'd been some doubt in our minds also as to whether he had killed his wife - hard to understand how George Axelrod's script missed that obvious point.Still, the humour tootles along nicely: the gloppita-gloppita machine; the goofballs that make your wife dance on the table - Brrrrrrrrrrp! - and then collapse - Blapppp!; delicious Virna Lisi; and those in-your-dreams lifestyle tips - it's like re-reading an old favourite comic strip.
View MoreA fine-looking period film that's got all the trappings of a miserable chauvinistic viewpoint of 100 years earlier. Even for the 1960s (and I do recall the 1960s), the social view of this film is out-of-touch, and worse, it's presented as comedy, so some viewers say it shouldn't be criticized. That's bull.I felt embarrassed while watching this that such fodder would make it out to the public even in 1965 and star the great Jack Lemmon too. After all, the idea of murdering your wife because she crimps your style is ludicrous, but for a comedy, and as presented here, it can be acceptable. However the courtroom antics are beyond the pale even for a comedy, and then the later message of happily married bliss is still presented in an outdated view of society, and I mean of 1960s society, not modern society.Apparently the writers of this so-called comedy-satire never left Jr High, that is, of the year 1890.
View MoreI'm a big fan of 60's movies - they remind me of my preteen years. I was born in 1960, and watching 60's movies, particularly with Jack Lemmon, is fun. But despite Jack saying this was the best one he did with Director Quine, I wouldn't recommend it. Now I'm wondering, if Jack said this is the BEST ONE, how tedious must the other five movies he did with Quine be!?! This movie is about 30 minutes TOO LONG. There's a lot of filler here - you could boil it down to about 80 minutes and still get the gist of things. Forget about it being politically incorrect - it's a period piece. But it gets bogged down with diversions that don't move the story along. I love Jack Lemmon, but you've got to be VERY patient with this movie to get any enjoyment out of it.
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