A Guide for the Married Man

Paul Manning has been married twelve years and is happy with his wife. Then his neighbour Ed Stander takes him aside: you have never cheated, you would not even know how. Ed has a system, and he starts giving lessons. Where to meet, what to say, which excuse holds, what to do to avoid being caught. Each lesson is played out as a sketch, and each sketch turns up a familiar face. The system looks flawless. Then Ed forgets his own rule. Gene Kelly directs; eighty-nine minutes, with Walter Matthau as Paul and Robert Morse as Ed. Lucille Ball, Jack Benny, Sid Caesar, Art Carney and a long list of others appear in the sketches. Hollywood's mid-sixties view of marital comedy is gathered up in this one film.