How to Commit Marriage (1969)

Why so much hype?

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

You know you've found a terrible movie where the best actor is a chimp!! Sadly, the chimp is only a bit player! Yes, "How to Commit Marriage" is an incredibly unfunny and offensive pile of bile from the hip, wacky 1960s. Jackie Gleason and Bob Hope is an odd combination but with this much talent, you'd assume the film would be funny. Well, you'd assume wrong!When the film begins, Bob Hope and Jane Wyman are a couple who decide, out of the blue, to get divorced. Soon, their daughter arrives and announces she wants to marry a nice guy. Because of this, the parents decide NOT to tell her about the pending divorce. As for his father (Jackie Gleason), he is a crass jerk who believes in two things...money and himself. He is a completely amoral jerk who tries to convince the couple to just live together. They agree...and when she gets pregnant, he then convinces them to give up the baby because 'babies are a drag'...and they do! Her parents, though divorced, swoop in to take their grandchild. There's more...but by this point the film REALLY lost my interest.The bottom line is that instead of making the film funny, THE joke is that the parents all decide to become hip....hip and VERY selfish. While I am NOT an old fashioned guy, the film seems to be a great endorsement of family and traditional values...mostly because everyone in this film is so hateful and nasty...especially Gleason's character. Perhaps a reworking of this MIGHT have worked, but with one actor well into his 60s and the other two in their 50s, it all comes off as amazingly contrived and ridiculous (you just have to see Hope in his Nehru jacket!). The script, actors and filmmakers all try way too hard to be clever and with it...but completely forgot to be funny. It's among the very worst films Gleason, Hope and Wyman have made...perhaps THE worst.

An awful movie. Another Z-grade comedy starring Bob Hope. This time, Hope is joined by Jackie Gleason and Jane Wyman, but even their combined talents aren't enough to raise this dud above the level of a sitcom...a bad sitcom. Hope and wife Wyman plan to divorce, but decide to stay together when they find out their daughter plans on marrying Gleason's son. Hope is insufferable and Wyman has little to do. Gleason, as a rock-n-roll record producer, does seem to be having a good time and he clearly has some fun with sexy co-star Tina Louise. Beyond that, HOW TO COMMIT MARRIAGE has little to offer. The supporting cast includes future National Lampooner Tim Matheson, who plays Gleason's son, stuffy Leslie Neilsen, and "Professor" Irwin Corey --- it's hard to believe people really thought HE was funny!

Wow, when you see how Hollywood portrays the social revolution in the sixties, you can see why people had to rebell!!! The writing is definitely in the tone of the grown-ups making fun of the band names during the sixties.It was surprising to see Tim Matheson in this movie. Also Tina Louise of Gilligan's Island fame. Leslie Nielsen is another one who is still popular.But who is that sensitive sixties band with the dreamy sound and the groovy philosophy? They're called "The Comfortable Chair" in the movie, but embarrassing as it is to admit, they sound like a real band from the time. Someone like "Small Faces", or whatever their name was.

Comic giants Hope and Gleason try to breathe life into this comedy about a couple (Hope and Wyman) who plan on getting a divorce, but then change plans when they learn that their daughter is getting married. Gleason plays the father in law to be; an obnoxious rock and roll producer. There are some funny one liners but altogether the poor script drags them and the rest of the cast down. Tim Matheson co-stars.