How to Murder Your Wife is a 1965 American black comedy film directed by Richard Quine that stars Jack Lemmon and Virna Lisi.
Stanley Ford (Lemmon) is a newspaper cartoonist who enjoys life as a bachelor. While attending a bachelor party for his friend, he becomes very drunk and gets married to the beautiful Italian woman who had stepped out of the cake (Lisi)... and immediately regrets it.
The film also stars Terry-Thomas, Eddie Mayehoff, Claire Trevor, Jack Albertson, and Mary Wickes.
It was released on September 20, 1965.
Tropes for the film:
- Bilingual Bonus: If you understand Italian, you'll hear Mrs. Ford recite Stanley's ultimate plot during the couple's visit to the lawyer's office. She summarizes the plot of a recent movie starring Marcello Mastroianni: "He wanted a divorce and couldn't get one, so he murdered his wife."
- Constructive Body Disposal: Stanley carries out a "dry run" for disposing of his wife (as research for his Bash Brannigan comic strip) by dumping a shop-window mannequin, dressed in his wife's clothes, in a pile-hole on a construction site; when his (still living) wife finds out, she leaves him and disappears, leaving him having to convince the court that he has not murdered her for real.
- Dark Is Evil: Stanley's Italian bride stays up late watching American movies on TV and keeps asking "Which are the good guys, the white hats or the black hats?".
- Door-Closes Ending: The film ends with the butler sheepishly closing the door on the audience as he is about to possibly have sex with the mother of his employer's wife.
- Dub Name Change: In the Italian version Virna Lisi's character is Greek.
- Endangered Soufflé: Appears with the wife's famous "lasagna souffle". (Its sounds improbable, but there actually is such a thing. It's popular in the Abruzzi, which perhaps is where Mrs. Ford is from).
- It's for a Book: Played straight when Stanley is accused of killing his missing wife after people who've sold him gadgets for the comic-strip murder go to the police, who then find the photographs he used to create the strip.
- Jumping Out of a Cake: Stanley meets the future Mrs. Ford this way. She later says it was the only job she could get after someone stole all her clothes.
- Language of Love: Stanley wakes up one day with a hangover and a beautiful wife, who speaks only Italian. He does eventually fall in love with his wife.
- Muse Abuse: The main character is a comic strip artist who "never has a character do anything he wouldn't do himself." When he marries, because of this rule, his character marries, and his comic strip shifts from a superspy adventure to a situation comedy drawn from his own life. Sick of the drivel he's writing, he decides the comic strip character will murder his comic strip wife — and, of course, he has to at least simulate doing the same himself. His wife is less than pleased when she realizes what he's done.
- No Name Given: The name of the Italian woman Stanley Ford marries is never given. She's only referred to as "Mrs. Ford" after marrying Stanley.
