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How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life

Play trailer Poster for How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life 1968 1h 42m Comedy Play Trailer Watchlist
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Tomatometer 1 Reviews 45% Popcornmeter 250+ Ratings
David Sloane (Dean Martin) suspects that his married friend, Harry (Eli Wallach), may be fooling around on his wife, so he intends to steal his mistress away from him. David assumes Harry is going after his secretary, Carol (Stella Stevens), and he quickly charms her into a relationship. Problem solved, David thinks, until he discovers that he assumed wrong and that Harry has actually been having an affair with his beautiful neighbor, Muriel (Anne Jackson).
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How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life

Critics Reviews

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Pauline Kael New Yorker The dialogue has the desperate, strained sound of burned-out gag- writers’ dialogue; the wisecracks come out sourcracks -- nastiness pretending to be low-down wisdom. Jul 6, 2022 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Audience Member What the **** were the actors drugging? Rated 1 out of 5 stars 01/28/23 Full Review Audience Member David Sloane (Dean Martin) is an confirmed bachelor. However, he's worried about the marriage of his friend Harry Hunter (Eli Wallach), who is having an affair. So David decides to steal away his friend's mistress, thinking that it's his employee Carol (Stella Stevens, in a part originally intended for Marilyn Monroe; by doing this movie, Jerry Lewis refused to speak to Stevens for nearly twenty years). Yet he has the wrong woman — it's really Carol's neighbor Muriel (Anne Jackson, who in real life was the wife of Wallach). You can just bet that hijinks ensue, especially when the mistresses begin to engage in collective bargaining agreements. So yeah — these old Dean Martin sex comedies are beyond dated, but to me, they're something akin to eating the junkiest of junk food on a snow day. They remind me of watching movies on old UHF channels in the 70s, lying under a blanket and wondering what it'd be like to be a grown-up. Hey little kid me — it stinks. Just watch Dean Martin movies and never grow up Fielder Cook, who directed this movie, also was behind the 1971 TV movie The Homecoming: A Christmas Story, which let to the series The Waltons. It was written by Stanley Shapiro, who also wrote Pillow Talk and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Audience Member Frothy comedy of multiple misunderstandings. An artifact of a different time but performed with zest by a capable cast. Stella Stevens is delightful radiating enough charm to fuel several movies, how she didn't become a bigger star is a mystery. It seems the kind of films in which she excelled were fading from popularity just as she was reaching the point in her career where she would have been the choice to lead them, a pity and a waste of an excellent talent. Even though the subject of the film is marital infidelity it is viewed with an innocent outlook which makes it similar to several of the other big hits of the sixties such as Move Over, Darling and That Touch of Mink. Aside from Stella the rest of the cast from Dino down give light enjoyable performances never taking the proceedings too seriously. If the viewer doesn't either they will find this a pleasant diversion. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/27/23 Full Review Audience Member Light and fluffy, yet still fun. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/27/23 Full Review Audience Member Of course the gender politics are outdated and questionable, that's the whole reason to watch stuff like this. That and contrived plotting - at one point, mistresses go on strike. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/25/23 Full Review Read all reviews
How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life

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Movie Info

Synopsis David Sloane (Dean Martin) suspects that his married friend, Harry (Eli Wallach), may be fooling around on his wife, so he intends to steal his mistress away from him. David assumes Harry is going after his secretary, Carol (Stella Stevens), and he quickly charms her into a relationship. Problem solved, David thinks, until he discovers that he assumed wrong and that Harry has actually been having an affair with his beautiful neighbor, Muriel (Anne Jackson).
Director
Fielder Cook
Producer
Stanley Shapiro
Production Co
Nob Hill Productions
Genre
Comedy
Original Language
English
Release Date (Streaming)
Jan 1, 2012
Runtime
1h 42m
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