How to Murder Your Wife

How to Murder Your Wife is a 1965 comedy starring Jack Lemmon and Virna Lisi.  In the film, Stanley (Lemmon) is a cartoonist whose comic strip Bash Brannigan, a James Bond type secret agent, "is syndicated in 463 newspapers (in the funny papers) from Bangor, ME to Honolulu."  He is a confirmed bachelor who lives in a townhouse in Manhattan with his butler.

At a bachelor party at his men's club, Stanley, while drunk, meets and weds an Italian beauty queen (Lisi) who is hired to come out of a cake.  When he sobers up, his immediate reaction is to get a divorce.  The next morning Stanley learns from his lawyer that, under New York State law, getting one is not a simple matter (I learned that lesson years ago as well).

Stanley's world is turned upside down.  His butler leaves him.  Stanley gains weight from his wife's delicious Italian cooking.  She redecorates their townhouse.  And his comic strip goes from secret agent to henpecked husband.  Stanley/Bash wants a change.  But how?

Stanley/Bash devises a plan to murder his wife and get away with it.  At a party at his home, Stanley gives her a "mickey" and she passes out.  He carries her to their bedroom and then takes a store mannequin (which looks just like his wife) he purchased and dumps it into a building site next door where cement will be poured over it the next day.  No body, no murder conviction?  Right?

When Stanley's wife wakes up from the "mickey," she sees the strip he drew of the above perfect murder and believes he doesn't love her.  Does he?  She leaves home without a trace.

Suspicious of the comic strip and her disappearance, the police and the DA believe not only Bash, but Stanley as well, murdered his missing wife.  He is arrested and tried.

In his defense, Stanley asks the members of his all male, married jury, if they could make their wives disappear (and no one would ever know), would they?  He asks them to imagine their lives if not married?  Stanley tells them that, not only would they have more money to spend on themselves, but they would be able to take advantage of all the girls, girls, girls out there waiting for them.  

That reminds me of the male fantasy of the swinging bachelor such as TV's Bob Collins (Love That Bob, 1955), a Hollywood photographer, and Sam Malone (Cheers, 1982), a Boston bar owner/bartender, who carry little black books full of names and phone numbers of beautiful, young, single women who are just sitting at home waiting for men to call them up for dates. 

Stanley said that "for too long, men have allowed themselves to be bullied, coddled, mothered and tyrannized by their wives and made to feel like feeble-minded idiots.  If one man can get away with murdering his wife (femicide?), other wives will fear their husbands (sounds like what Don Corleone said to Bonasera).  Acquit me on the grounds of justifiable homicide."  And the jury did just that.

This film from fifty-five years ago uses a now outdated story line.  At one point, Stanley says to a woman, "You're a woman and as such, your opinions mean nothing to me."  Feminists would eat that up.  His membership at a men-only club (do they still exist?) would be deemed not politically correct.  Today, most all cartoon strips are posted online, not in newspapers, and cartoonists make a lot less money.  Michael Corleone said his son is "three years-old and can read the funny papers."  Do they still exist?

I don't get the premise of How to Murder Your Wife.  Stanley marries a beautiful, young, sexy woman, who adores him, hugs him and kisses him incessantly.  She cooks well for him and takes care of his home.  And all he wants is to be a bachelor again, living with his butler.  Go, figure!

I think some heterosexual men just don't like women (misogyny?).  They use them as play things, but prefer the company of other heterosexual men:  here, Stanley's butler and his men-only club.  Personally, I enjoy the company of women.