DeanNYC To be completely fair, we can't really judge this film by our 21st Century standards. This is a story of how a Married Man can cheat on his wife and get away with it. So, right there, the very premise of this movie is out of date.Gene Kelly, who was dancing less and less on screen by the mid 1960s, had the opportunity to step behind the camera a handful of times and helm some films. This is arguably his worst effort.And yet, the picture isn't without its charms. Walter Matthau is endlessly watchable even when he has very little to work with, and he's doing the most he can to make this worthwhile. It's a difficult circumstance because we're meant to believe that his character is married to Inger Stevens, and yet wants to stray just to get some strange. I guess if you'll buy that, you'll swallow the premise whole.Also you have Robert Morse, straight from his effort in the Broadway smash turned Hollywood musical, "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," who continues to instruct in the ways of attaining his goal. This time, it's extra marital hanky-panky he's after and he knows, like a book, exactly how to avoid the pitfalls and pratfalls of a bad situation, so he can enjoy some of the other women in his life without letting wifey know about it.The best part of the project are the "instructionals" offered to illustrate every situation Morse tells Matthau about, featuring cameos by the likes of Lucille Ball, Jack Benny, Sid Caesar, Terry-Thomas, Jayne Mansfield, Phil Silvers, Louis Nye, and the one most people who view the film favor, Joey Bishop. Really, if this movie were just a series of these vignettes, it probably would have been that much better!But we're stuck with these two unhappy hubbys who are determined to gain a conquest, much like the mountain climber "...Because it's there!" That part of the story is tedious, repetitive and, much like their attempts to score their mistresses, ultimately unsatisfying. A Guide for the Married Man is most effective as a time capsule, a Hollywood spin on the mindset of the people in the suburbs in the mid 1960s, and what they did to break the boredom of that surreality, or at least what they imagined might break it. I don't know how many men actually were wannabe lotharios, and if you believe this film it's basically all of them! But it is supposed to be a comedy (albeit with only a few mild chuckles, unfortunately), so keep a grain of salt handy, along with the fast forward button on your remote.

Bob Bernet I was 12 years old when this film was made. I remember the sex comedies from the 60s and this is no comedy. I recently watched this movie with a friend who wanted to see it because Leonard Maltin gave it 3 1/2 stars. Well, good old Leonard must have been seeing stars when watching this one. I would have given it a BOMB rating. It was intended to be a comedy. The only thing missing was a laugh track. And it sure needed one. If you enjoyed TV shows like "Love American Style" or "Three's Company," then you might enjoy giving up 90 minutes of your life to watch this very poor film. First of all, the premise was not even believable. As one reviewer mentioned, Walter Matthau plays a character who has not even lost interest in his wife played by knockout beauty Inger Stevens. He's just toying with cheating on her because he thinks he is supposed to because it's the liberated and sophisticated 1960s. Oh, brother. I am embarrassed for director Gene Kelly. Think about it. There a reason why this film is rarely mentioned. It's a waste of time.

Merwyn Grote A GUIDE FOR THE MARRIED MAN is a period piece, a relic of a time gone by. It is set in a brief American era of the 1960s when sophistication was marked by the three-martini lunch, where male wit and style were drawn from the pages of Playboy; and where the war between men and women was a naughty little game played as part of The Good Life in suburbia, not a cultural one fought in the board rooms and the court rooms. Every bit as artificial in its glib amorality as a Norman Rockwell painting is in its ambiance of homey traditionalism, A GUIDE FOR THE MARRIED MAN is about adultery, not as a thou-shall-not commandment, but as a sporting event. And though it views adultery as a dangerous game, not without its risks; A GUIDE also views it as a male challenge that must be met, because, in the words of one character, "she's there!"Structurally, the film is an old-fashioned throwback to the days when a studio would concoct a movie designed to showcase its stars in bite-size appearances; either in musical faux-biographies like ZIEGFELD FOLLIES and NIGHT AND DAY or in episodic comedies like IF I HAD A MILLION and WE'RE NOT MARRIED. Considering the film is smoothly directed with assured style by studio-bred legend Gene Kelly, such a variety show format is not that surprising. In this case, instead of putting on a show, the framing story involves Walter Matthau as a mostly happily married man with a seven year itch. He is married to a perfect wife in the very attractive form of the perfectly vivacious Inger Stevens. Yet he wants cake that he can both have and eat, because, to paraphrase, "you'd get tired of steak, if you didn't have fish once in awhile." To teach the old dog his new tricks, enter Robert Morse as the impish, married swinger-next-door to provide sagely advise on how to best weave webs of deceit. In teaching Matthau the dos and don'ts of cheating, Morse offers up numerous "I once knew this guy who ..."-style urban legends, all illustrated via comic vignettes by a cast of wonderful "technical advisors," including Wally Cox, Art Carney, Lucille Ball, Sid Caesar, Phil Silvers, Ben Blue, Polly Bergen and Louis Nye, among others. While all the skits are very funny, a few are tiny comic masterpieces: Jack Benny in "How to break it off;" Joey Bishop in "Deny, deny, deny;" Carl Reiner in "You can never be TOO careful!" and Terry-Thomas and Jayne Mansfield illustrating why adultery should never be a home-based hobby. The film skillfully walks the line between merely being a "Love, American Style" series of comic skits and telling a gently amusing story about a man cautiously testing the limitations of his middle class marriage and his middle American values. Yes, its approach to infidelity is dishonest and sexist and politically incorrect, but it all seems like good, clean fun compared to contemporary "sex comedies" that are defined by how far a film can push the bounds of being gross-out tasteless and raunchy. That is the quirky thing about A GUIDE FOR THE MARRIED MAN, it is strangely wholesome. There is a benign quality to its obsession with sex: no nudity, no profanity, really no sex -- even most of the bedrooms that are shown have twin beds. As lascivious as his quest for a dangerous liaison seems, there is something boyishly romantic about Matthau's lust. Mildly daring for its time, the film's approach to sex more reflects the innocent naughtiness of the Marilyn Monroe '50s than the strident feminist/politically correctness of the '70s. And like most such comedies, from THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH to BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE to SAME TIME, NEXT YEAR to "10", A GUIDE FOR THE MARRIED MAN is all flirtation and not copulation; it ultimately recognizes the fantasy of swinging, only to use it to reaffirm the sanctity of home, marriage and family.

jckruize Let me start off by giving credit where it's due: Gene Kelly and company put a lot of lovely female pulchritude in this one. Not a skinny babe in the bunch. That's a big plus for us dirty old men.However, the script itself is not only misogynistic -- every female character is treated as an object, not a person -- but mostly unfunny. Part of the problem is miscasting. The two male roles should've been reversed: Matthau as the cynical smoothie, and Morse as the naif. Neither actor here is showcased to his best advantage.The cameos are pretty lame too, with comedy greats like Lucille Ball and Jack Benny largely wasted. The best one has Carl Reiner, who's funny as always in a mainly physical comedy role, but the ending of the sketch is weak.The dumbest aspect of the whole enterprise is the central notion of Matthau wanting to cheat on his incredibly gorgeous, hot-to-trot wife, played by knockout Inger Stevens. After an eyeful of her I spent the whole rest of the movie muttering to myself about what an idiot he was.As a time capsule of the 'Swinging Sixties' this might provide some nostalgic amusement. But there are much better sex comedies from the period. Check out Jack Lemmon in HOW TO MURDER YOUR WIFE.