How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life (1968)

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

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.

Toddling in at the tail end of the cycle of "chaste" sex comedies popularized by Doris Day, this installment has several things working in its favor and a few things not. Martin plays a confirmed bachelor whose friend Wallach is carrying on an affair with a woman (Jackson) who is the caring and nurturing antithesis of his needling and superficial wife Bard. In an effort to save the marriage, Martin decides he will seduce the lover and break up the affair, but, due to some contrived circumstances (nearly always the case in films of this ilk), he winds up cavorting with the wrong girl! Stevens is the curvaceous doll that Martin mistakenly targets and it leads to any number of complications and misunderstandings. Martin is decent here, easily bringing more energy and commitment to the role than he had been in other films of this era (such as the Matt Helm frolics, one of which counted Stevens as a co-star.) Stevens gives her all to her role. To say that she is luscious is akin to saying that golf courses contain a small amount of green. She not only looks amazing in her various, snug, Moss Mabry creations, but she turns in an astute and captivating performance. Wallach, who typically worked in pictures far more serious than this, gives an interesting performance. Jackson gets rather short shrift, with the bulk of the attention and close-ups going to Stevens, though she manages to play her role effectively. Ironically, these two actors playing illicit lovers were, in fact, married in real life at the time! (They still are as of this writing, making them one of Hollywood's more successful unions.) A number of stalwart character actors turn up in support. Field plays a knowing landlady who's lines vary in quality, but all of which are given as much spin as she can muster. Albertson (who would reunite with Stevens for "The Poseidon Adventure" a couple of years later) plays a kindly neighbor. Oppenheimer is a lascivious office manager who helps to get the ball of misunderstandings rolling and Furth is a drippy date of Stevens. Fans of "Will & Grace" will enjoy spotting Morrison in the beginning as Stevens' sassy co-worker. The film has that unmistakable crisp, clean quality of mid-to-late 60's Hollywood with the almost sterile sets and the well-tailored clothes. (Stevens wears a jacket in her first scene that seems awfully difficult and elaborate for a single woman to be dealing with!) The music, apart from the credits number crooned by The Ray Conniff Singers, is not among Michel Legrand's more memorable efforts. Unfortunately, the script and story are not only more than a little dated and almost offensive in the presentation of gender roles, but also the endless contrivances and coincidences threaten to make the entire film become tedious. It's only the goodwill mustered up by Stevens and a few of her co-stars that saves the film from being a trite exercise in idiocy. Fans of hers owe it to themselves to see one of her most significant screen roles and to revel in her extreme loveliness. Others may find themselves losing interest as the rather silly plot meanders toward its conclusion.