Paul Manning discovers that his dear friend and neighbor, Ed Stander, has been cheating on his wife. When Paul asks him about it, Ed talks about men who have successfully committed adultery. With each new story, Paul cannot help noticing the attractive blonde, Irma Johnson, who lives nearby.
Paul comes close to cheating on his wife Ruth, but he does not commit adultery. When in a motel room with a woman who is a wealthy divorced client, Paul hears shouting outside, and when he looks out the window, he sees photographers taking pictures of Ed in bed with Irma. Paul takes the opportunity to flee the scene and go home to his wife.
According to Fox records, A Guide for the Married Man needed to earn $5,900,000 in rentals to break even, and it returned $7,355,000, resulting in a profit.[7]
Reception
In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther called A Guide for the Married Man "the broadest and funniest farce to come out of Hollywood since the Russians came last year", and wrote:
What is thoroughly disarming and delightful about this mischievous film is the impudent candor of it and its freedom from the leer. Mr. Matthau approaches infidelity with the ingenuousness of a clumsy bull moose, and Mr. Morse assists his intentions with all the wickedness of an imp. The felicities of girl-watching—and there are many of them through the film—are treated with absolute frankness as innocent enjoyment. And Mr. Kelly has directed with speed and persistent wit. "A Guide for the Married Man'' is in the spirit of some of those wonderful old Robert Benchley shorts.[8]
Variety wrote, "Walter Matthau plays a married innocent, eager to stray under the tutelage of friend and neighbor Robert Morse. But this long-married hubby is so retarded in his Immorality (it takes him 12 years to get the seven-year-itch) that, between his natural reluctance and mentor Morse's suggestions (interlarded with warnings against hastiness), he needs the entire film to have his mind made up."[9]
Critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote, "There are a lot of funny people in this movie, but they are not very funny people in this movie, Gertrude Stein might have said. The Casino Royale syndrome has struck again in A Guide for the Married Man, and we are forced to sit and watch as dozens of big-name stars jostle each other for their moment before the cameras."[10]
Pauline Kael of The New Yorker called A Guide for the Married Man "a series of dumb skits", and felt that the famous names in the cast are all wasted: "[W]hat they do is no more memorable than the plugs for brand-name products that are scattered throughout."[11]
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