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How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life
Wealthy playboy David Sloane wrongly believes good girl Carol Corman is his best friend's mistress.
Release : | 1968 |
Rating : | 6.3 |
Studio : | Nob Hill Productions Inc., |
Crew : | Production Design, Property Master, |
Cast : | Dean Martin Stella Stevens Eli Wallach Anne Jackson Betty Field |
Genre : | Comedy Romance |
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I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.
Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.
There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
Dino is in such good form here and Stella is gorgeous They are very good together Most enjoyable but if fluff so easy to watch
Glossy nonsense from screenwriters Stanley Shapiro (who also produced) and Nate Monaster begins as a cute working-girl comedy but, with hardly a shift in tone, suddenly morphs into a battle-of-the-sexes vehicle, with Dean Martin and Stella Stevens substituting for Rock Hudson and Doris Day. Corporate sharks Martin and Eli Wallach aren't very convincing cast as buddies in New York City--so when Martin offers to test the loyalty of Wallach's mistress, it seems like a lot of thankless work. Dino has the wrong girl anyway, and Stevens is put in the exhausting position of playing the flirt, the fool, the victim and the avenger. Director Fielder Cook stages the action rather limply, failing to inspire his cast (Martin only livens up in the final 30 minutes). The plushy picture looks good (except for a ridiculous yellow ensemble with black attributes and matching skull-cap worn by Stevens in the first cemetery scene), but its early promise is reneged on. Shapiro's comedies with Hudson and Day, "Pillow Talk" and "Lover Come Back", had some pep; this boudoir battle royale seems stagnant for 1968, with a depressing overall air of resignation. **1/2 from ****
This film is sophisticated. That is it doesn't have teens, sex or gore. What it does have is fantastic writing that ties up all the loose ends. You have to listen closely because the witticisms come in a hurried staccato. Turn away and you might miss something. The pencils. The picket sign Martin carries. The hobos. The folk songs. Muriels thesis on what men think about. At the end guess what happens...a happy ending. That's novel isn't it? We should have a wake for great writing. It's been dead for years. Stella Stevens would have been a star in the old studio system she deserved to be. She plays a good, kind, smart, sexy woman. Dean displays his very natural charm. Wallich is great as an imperfect good man.
Dean Martin steps nicely into a role that Rock Hudson would have been cast in with How To Save A Marriage. Others here think that Stella Stevens is standing in for Doris Day. But for myself Stella's part is way to kookie for something Doris would have done. If Doris was offered the part she wisely refused. Stella's role opposite Dean is similar to what Paula Prentiss did opposite Rock in Man's Favorite Sport.The title does say it all. Dino is a pal of philandering Eli Wallach who is married to Katherine Card and who Card confides in about her suspicions that Wallach is straying. So Dino resolves to do interference between Wallach and the other woman.The problem is that Dino misses his target and starts putting the moves on Stella Stevens who works in Wallach's department store. Eli is really seeing his real life wife Anne Jackson. When it all falls apart Stella makes a united stand with Anne and their landlady Betty Field against the predatory male. Stella puts poor Dino through quite a ringer before she's found out.In a very broad part that calls for overacting Eli Wallach steps nicely into the Tony Randall/Gig Young part. He easily steals the film from the two stars. How To Save A Marriage is the last and one of the lesser modern dress comedies that Dean Martin did after splitting from Jerry Lewis. From then on his film career would be mostly westerns and Matt Helm films. You want to see Martin showcased best in screen comedy look at All In A Night's Work or Who's Got The Action.