How to Murder Your Wife

How to Murder Your Wife is a 1965 American black comedy film from United Artists, produced by George Axelrod, directed by Richard Quine, that stars Jack Lemmon and Virna Lisi. Quine also directed Lemmon in My Sister Eileen, It Happened to Jane, Operation Mad Ball, The Notorious Landlady, and Bell, Book and Candle. The comic strip art featured in the film was credited to Mel Keefer, who drew newspaper comic strips such as Perry Mason, Mac Divot and Rick O'Shay. Comics artist Alex Toth did a teaser comic strip in Keefer's style that ran in The Hollywood Reporter and in several newspapers promoting the film for ten days prior to its theatrical opening. Plot Stanley Ford is a successful newspaper cartoonist enjoying his bachelorhood in his New York City townhouse, with his loyal and attentive valet, Charles Firbank. Stanley's widely syndicated comic strip, Bash Brannigan, is a secret-agent thriller, and Stanley insists Brannigan will not be shown doing anything which Stanley himself has not actually done, which he ensures by enacting storylines, playing Brannigan, while Charles takes photographs which Stanley uses as visual references when drawing the comic strip.