How to Murder Your Wife 1965

Stanley Ford, a successful newspaper cartoonist, thrives on bachelor life in a stylish New York City townhouse, where his loyal valet, Charles Firbank, keeps everything running like clockwork. His wildly popular, widely syndicated comic strip, Bash Brannigan, stages a secret-agent thriller that Stanley makes feel real by acting out the adventures himself. He even takes on the persona of Brannigan while Charles photographs the improvised scenes to serve as visual references when drawing the strip.

During Tobey Rawlins’ bachelor party, Stanley drinks far too much and wakes up married to a beautiful Italian woman who appeared from a cake, in a spontaneously performed ceremony by a drunken judge. The sight of his naked wife the next morning fills him with regret, and the reality of his impulsive decision sinks in. The shock is compounded when he discovers that his new wife does not speak English. His lawyer, Harold Lampson, advises him that a divorce would be legally tricky, leaving Stanley with a delicate and awkward predicament.

The woman Stanley has married is warm, affectionate, and an excellent cook, but her language barrier complicates every attempt to sort things out. To help her learn English, she spends time with Edna, Harold’s manipulative, controlling wife, who speaks fluent Italian herself and eagerly passes along a few of her own more calculating methods. Through these sessions, the newcomer also picks up a sense of Edna’s scheming ways, which begin to color the dynamics at home. Meanwhile, Stanley’s life at home grows increasingly crowded: a bright, energetic household routine, a dog that yaps at all hours, and an ever-growing supply of beauty products and lingerie that invade the bathroom. To cap it off, her mother announces she will move in from Rome as well, further upending Stanley’s carefully curated bachelor world.

Back at work, Stanley grows desperate for privacy and decides to shift the tone of his comic strip. He transforms the domestic misadventures of his new life into a lighter, comedic counterpoint to Brannigan’s spy exploits, renaming the material The Brannigans. The strip remains a hit, but the all-male members-only health club where Stanley seeks refuge becomes a flashpoint when Edna discovers the meeting and makes a scene, prompting Mrs. Ford to confront her husband in a dramatic entrance. The confrontation reveals the friction of a life lived under scrutiny and drives Stanley to be banished from the club for violating its “no women” policy.

In a moment of careless bravado, Stanley pens a plot in Brannigan’s voice in which his fictional alter ego kills his wife and disposes of her body in concrete at a nearby construction site. He stages the murder in real life as he writes, drugging his wife during a cocktail party and enacting the burial using a department-store mannequin instead of a real body. The episode is captured in the day’s comic, and the sensational sequence becomes prosecution evidence in the ensuing murder trial.

When Mrs. Ford learns of the finished strip and the unexpected plot, she leaves in a rush with only her dog, heartbroken and angered by Stanley’s actions. The newspapers publish the sensational piece, and Stanley finds himself arrested and charged with murder, forced to defend himself with the same charisma and wit that fuel his Brannigan adventures. He pleads justifiable homicide, appealing to the all-male jury’s potential frustrations with their own marriages. The courtroom roars with approval as he is acquitted unanimously, and the crowd celebrates his victory, carrying him out on their shoulders.

Returning home a free man, Stanley discovers signs that his wife may still be in the house. Accompanied by a now exuberant Charles, he walks into a bedroom that seems to promise reconciliation—the moment is tinged with irony as Charles jokes about double jeopardy, since a second trial isn’t legally possible. Yet the room also reveals a new, surprising turn: his wife lies beneath the covers, inviting him to close the chapter with a shared moment of intimacy. The twist doesn’t end there, however, as Charles discovers Mrs. Ford’s mother arriving with her daughter; the two women share a striking, tooth-gap match that hints at a different pairing in this ever-shifting domestic comedy. With that, Charles closes the door, leaving the final image open to interpretation and the audience to wonder what happens next in this playful, boundary-preaking tale.