How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life *** (1968, Dean Martin, Stella Stevens, Eli Wallach, Anne Jackson) – Classic Movie Review 11,582

Director Fielder Cook’s entertaining 1968 comedy romance film How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life stars the talented and attractive team of Dean Martin, Stella Stevens, Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson.

Bachelor attorney David Sloane (Dean Martin) tries to save his married buddy Harry Hunter (Eli Wallach)’s marriage, by seducing his mistress. What Dean doesn’t know is the mistress isn’t Eli’s attractive secretary Carol Corman (Stevens) but Carol’s next-door neighbour Muriel Laszlo (Anne Jackson, in real life Mrs Wallach).

There is a good tally of gags in this smooth comedy, amusingly scripted by Stanley Shapiro who also wrote comedies for Rock Hudson and Doris Day, wining a shared Oscar for Pillow Talk (1959). He was a nominee for Operation Petticoat (1959), Lover Come Back (1961) and That Touch of Mink (1962).

The film’s score is by Michel Legrand. Mack David wrote the lyrics of the title song ‘The Winds of Change’, with music by Michel Legrand, performed by The Ray Conniff Singers.

Also in the cast are Betty Field, Jack Albertson, Katharine Bard, Woodrow Parfrey, Alan Oppenheimer, Shelley Morrison, George Furth, Monroe Arnold and Claud Stroud.

Stevens’s acting with Martin led to her falling out with her The Nutty Professor co-star Jerry Lewis, who refused to speak to her for two decades. Martin and Lewis were feuding after the breakup of their comedy duo.

Shelley Morrison, who plays Stevens’s friend and co-worker, gained fame as Rosario in Will and Grace.

Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,582

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