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Marriage on the Rocks
Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin had their final star pairing in a saucy little comedy from 1965, Marriage on the Rocks which does provide laughs that mostly come from an unexpected source.
Sinatra plays Dan Edwards, a workaholic advertising executive who has been neglecting wife Val (Deborah Kerr) for years, evidenced by Val's first appearance where she tells her lawyer she wants to divorce Dan on the grounds of boredom. At the urging of best pal Ernie Brewer (Martin), Dan takes Val to Mexico for a second honeymoon where Dan and Val end up getting accidentally divorced. When their plans to remarry get interrupted by Dan's business, he sends Ernie to Mexico to let Val know and somehow Ernie and Val end up married.
In the 60', this film was what was probably referred to then as a "sex comedy", because a good portion of Cy Howard's screenplay is centered on sex, how to get it back in a marriage and how to get it without making an actual commitment, even though I think the actual word is only used once in the entire film. This comedy cleverly updates the Doris Day/Rock Hudson comedies of a few years earlier, looking at those characters twenty years after those films ended. Howard's screenplay works very hard at being hip (for 1965) with its implied but never overt observations about sex, most importantly that sex is still an important part of marriage, even after 19 years.
I must admit surprise where this film went during the second half after Ernie and Val end up married. Instead of immediately trying to remedy the predicament, Val decides to use the situation to make Dan jealous and Dan decides to relive his bachelor days and we're not sure if things are ever going to get untangled.
Sinatra and Martin have always been an engaging screen team and this film is no exception and there are some funny turns along the way by Hermione Baddelly, Cesar Romero, and John McGiver, not to mention the film debut of Frank's daughter, Nancy, playing his onscreen daughter. But the real joy and fun in this film actually came from Deborah Kerr, delivering a deliciously breezy comic performance as the bored housewife determined to save her marriage and then make the best of it when that starts looking to be impossible. Just as she did in The Grass is Greener, Kerr shows a penchant for light comedy that cannot be denied and director Jack Donahue takes full advantage of it. Kerr makes this film seem a lot better than it really is. Kudos as well to the art direction/set direction crew and to Nelson Riddle's zippy music. For a film that was released when I was eight years old, this one held up pretty well.
Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin had their final star pairing in a saucy little comedy from 1965, Marriage on the Rocks which does provide laughs that mostly come from an unexpected source.
Sinatra plays Dan Edwards, a workaholic advertising executive who has been neglecting wife Val (Deborah Kerr) for years, evidenced by Val's first appearance where she tells her lawyer she wants to divorce Dan on the grounds of boredom. At the urging of best pal Ernie Brewer (Martin), Dan takes Val to Mexico for a second honeymoon where Dan and Val end up getting accidentally divorced. When their plans to remarry get interrupted by Dan's business, he sends Ernie to Mexico to let Val know and somehow Ernie and Val end up married.
In the 60', this film was what was probably referred to then as a "sex comedy", because a good portion of Cy Howard's screenplay is centered on sex, how to get it back in a marriage and how to get it without making an actual commitment, even though I think the actual word is only used once in the entire film. This comedy cleverly updates the Doris Day/Rock Hudson comedies of a few years earlier, looking at those characters twenty years after those films ended. Howard's screenplay works very hard at being hip (for 1965) with its implied but never overt observations about sex, most importantly that sex is still an important part of marriage, even after 19 years.
I must admit surprise where this film went during the second half after Ernie and Val end up married. Instead of immediately trying to remedy the predicament, Val decides to use the situation to make Dan jealous and Dan decides to relive his bachelor days and we're not sure if things are ever going to get untangled.
Sinatra and Martin have always been an engaging screen team and this film is no exception and there are some funny turns along the way by Hermione Baddelly, Cesar Romero, and John McGiver, not to mention the film debut of Frank's daughter, Nancy, playing his onscreen daughter. But the real joy and fun in this film actually came from Deborah Kerr, delivering a deliciously breezy comic performance as the bored housewife determined to save her marriage and then make the best of it when that starts looking to be impossible. Just as she did in The Grass is Greener, Kerr shows a penchant for light comedy that cannot be denied and director Jack Donahue takes full advantage of it. Kerr makes this film seem a lot better than it really is. Kudos as well to the art direction/set direction crew and to Nelson Riddle's zippy music. For a film that was released when I was eight years old, this one held up pretty well.