The Dean Martin Double Feature - Who Was That Lady / How To Save A Marriage
by Fielder Cook, George Sidney
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Dean Martin, Eli Wallach, Janet Leigh, Stella Stevens, Tony CurtisDirector: Fielder Cook, George Sidney
Brand: Sony
Cinematographer: Harry Stradling Sr.
Producer: Norman Krasna
Writer: Norman Krasna
Producer: Stanley Shapiro
Writer: Stanley Shapiro
Writer: Nate Monaster
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 216 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-12-12
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Sony Pictures
Movie Reviews of The Dean Martin Double Feature - Who Was That Lady / How To Save A Marriage
Movie Review: A good Martin comedy paired with a bad one
Summary: 3 Stars
Dean Martin made quite a few comedies away from the Rat Pack in the 1960s. Most of them were pretty interesting and even the bad ones are worth seeing. This DVD double feature includes one that worked well for me and had me laughing out loud more than a few times and one that didn't work as well and only had me laughing in its last 15 minutes (out of a 115-minute movie).
The good one, HOW TO SAVE A MARRIAGE AND RUIN YOUR LIFE (1968), introduces the necessary characters and relationships and builds up the set of circumstances that leads, quite plausibly, to the misunderstanding that sets the plot in motion. We see how shopgirl Stella Stevens (as beautiful as I've ever seen her) learns something incriminating about her boss (Eli Wallach) that leads to a promotion that buys her silence about the apartment where he keeps a mistress, hence starting the rumor that she herself is the boss's mistress, which leads the boss's best friend, Wall Street investor Dean Martin, to try to save his friend's marriage by seducing the "mistress" away from Wallach and proving to him how unfaithful she really is. When Dean eventually realizes his mistake--and the look on his face in the course of this scene is just priceless--and the extent of the raveling he'll have to do to undo all the unraveling, it just keeps getting funnier. The key here is that for most of the film the audience knows more than the characters do and suspense is generated as we wait for the characters to catch up.
WHO WAS THAT LADY? never bothers to adequately introduce the characters but instead plunges us into a thoroughly implausible situation with unbelievable, unsympathetic characters whose sheer stupidity is constantly infuriating. Who would believe that Tony Curtis is an assistant professor of chemistry at Columbia University? Or that Janet Leigh would be a glamorous housewife in a lavish Manhattan apartment on an assistant professor's salary? Or that such a professor would have as best friend a CBS writer and swinging bachelor, played by Dean Martin? (Granted, Tony and Janet were married at the time, but these roles just didn't fit them.) To mend things after Janet catches Tony kissing one of his students, Dean comes up with the harebrained scheme of telling Janet that he and Tony are undercover FBI men and the girl with Tony was a "foreign exchange" student under "investigation." Against all common sense, Janet falls for it and all suspension of disbelief goes out the window. Things get more ridiculous until some genuine FBI personnel, well played by John McIntire and James Whitmore, get involved and take some control of the idiotic farce. When actual Russian spies (played by Simon Oakland and Larry Storch) enter the scene, the star trio is forced to really go undercover. Only then, during a finale in the basement of the Empire State Building, with a drugged Tony and Dean thinking they've woken up aboard a Russian sub, do things finally get funny.
Both films are presented anamorphically on this DVD. One's in color (HOW TO SAVE A MARRIAGE) and one's in black-and-white (WHO WAS THAT LADY?) and both look flawless.
Summary of The Dean Martin Double Feature - Who Was That Lady / How To Save A Marriage
Throughout his long career, with a cocktail in one hand and a cigarette in the other, Dean Martin was the iconic epitome of the carefree, smooth operator. The Dean Martin Double Feature includes Who Was That Lady?, co-starring Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh and How to Save a Marriage (and Ruin Your Life), co-starring Stella Stevens. Dino uses his inimitable style to demonstrate what made the '60s swing with these wacky comedies of marital mix-ups.In Who Was That Lady?, Martin stars opposite real-life husband and wife Tony Curtis (Some Like it Hot, Don't Make Waves) and Janet Leigh (Touch of Evil, Psycho). Curtis enlists the help of his friend Martin when his wife (Leigh) demands a divorce after catching him kissing one of his students. The guys cook up a cover story that Curtis is working undercover for the FBI, and that the kiss was part of a sting to catch a spy. The gullible Leigh buys the wild fabrication and later, unwittingly touches off a melee that is filmed by TV news crews. Some real Russian spies assume Curtis really is an FBI agent, and kidnap the trio, which kick starts a series of madcap plot twists. Directed by George Sidney, the film also stars Barbara Nichols, Larry Storch and Joi Lansing.
Martin also headlines the bedroom farce How to Save a Marriage (and Ruin Your Life). Single, swinging lawyer David Sloane (Martin) tries to circumvent his friend Harry's extramarital affair by romancing his secretary, Carol. However, David has seduced the wrong woman; Harry has actually been fooling around with Muriel. When David tells Harry that he's stolen his mistress, Harry isn't sure what's going on, but the message has the intended effect, and Harry patches things up with his wife Mary. But when Carol and Muriel compare notes, they decide that something is fishy, and the two draw up a series of demands - Muriel insists that Harry leave Mary and marry her, while Carol wants David to make it legal with her. Directed by Fielder Cook, the film also stars Jack Albertson and Shelley Morrison (TV's Will & Grace).
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