How to murder your wife
With Mad Men and this movie, you’d think that the 60s were something like the pinnacle of all-time woman-hatred. As far as I know, clothing styles were much more conservative in the 50s, but in real life, the 50s were probably the kind of time when men were just about to recover from the war and women were the truly empowered because they were a generation that was able to show that they could do it without men. Heck even my mother (who actually grew up in the 70s) had an attitude like “What do I want with men if I am better than them in every aspect?” In the end, love conquered her defensive attitude and it’s still going strong. Kind of like the movie, just the other way around, huh?
So yes, of course the film is blatantly misogynist – but then again, it really is not. Just like how the ending of Divoce Italian Style ultimately criticizes the main character and turns him into a feeble-minded idiot, the ending of How to murder your wife is actually a love letter to marriage as an institution. Granted, that message is just as old-fashioned and dated, but at least the film is not actually all that chauvinist. In fact, chauvinism doesn’t really persist nowadays anymore. The gender problems have become much more complicated – with women finding new aspects to touch upon, now that most women are working; with men whining about the loss of their status, and how male privileges are supposedly a myth. None of it is in How to murder your wife. In this film, men are workers and women are housewives and the world is simple.
With the simplicity out of the way, it is possible to distance yourself from the now outdated societal implications of the film, and enjoy the comedy as it is – as a really funny one. Everybody in the film is just incredibly amusing, and this is Jack Lemmon at his best. His role as the successful man and resisting lover is a little bit like in Avanti, yet he retains this lovable awkwardness which make his jerkish characters (especially at the beginning of the films) immediately likable nonetheless. Only Jack Lemmon could make it believable to be a playboy yet wear Bash Brannigan sweatshirts, and this crucial moment in which he meets Virna Lisi’s character for the first time is quite awesome. Obviously he was in love with her all along, he just had to realize it.
It doesn’t really matter how formulaic this film is, I think it’s a great romantic comedy in the style of Saks’ “Cactus Flower” and Wilder’s “Avanti”.