This film strives desperately to be funny and only occasionally succeeds. Oddly, Jack Lemmon mostly functions as a straight man in those moments. The comedy is supplied by one of the other actors: Terry-Thomas as his valet, Eddie Mayehoff as his incompetent, hen-pecked lawyer, Clair Trevor as the lawyer's wife, Virna Lisi as his own wife or Sidney Blackstone as a frequently drunk judge proclaiming that he is "as sober as a judge." The premise -- that Lemmon's character is a dedicated bachelor who accidentally marries the woman (Lisi) that rose out of a cake at a drunken, guys-only party -- might be funny but it usually isn't. Ms. Lisi, an Italian beauty who made a couple of Hollywood films, is asked to be beautiful, speak Italian in rapid outbursts and to perform a sexy dancing routine at one point in the story. She does those three things efficiently. Lemmon's role is absurd to begin with, and it doesn't get a lot better as the film progresses. It doesn't much matter that the story is ridiculous. Many successful comedies are ridiculous. Rather, the film often fails because the effort to provoke laughter is simply too strenuous.
Review of How to Murder Your Wife
