Part-Time Wife (1961) User Reviews

Part-Time Keeper.

[morrison-dylan-fan · 5/10 · 23 December 2016]

With Christmas coming up,I started making plans to pick up a DVD from UK studio Network that my dad could enjoy watching over the X- Mas season.Taking a look at an old issue of UK movie magazine Empire,I found a good review for a fun sounding title starring future Sit-Com stars,which led to me calling for a time out.

The plot:

Struggling to make ends meet, Tom Briggs looks over at his unmarried war buddy Drew Tierney and sees nothing but the easy life. Running a car insurance business,Tierney and his workers steal cars on the side as the business gets topped up by Tierney's daddy money.Learning that his dad is coming down to pay a visit,Tierney is reminded of his dad wanting to see him married. Struggling to find a women who will pretend to be his wife, Tierney suddenly remembers Briggs,and wonders if he can butter Tierney up to "rent" his wife.

View on the film:

Limited in time to set-up the relationship, Anton Rodgers and Nyree Dawn Porter give very good performances as Tom and Jenny Briggs,with Porter and Rodgers keeping the light comedic shade intact during the rapid-fire rows the couple have. Produced by the low-budget Danzigers,director Max Varnel does very well at finding some space for style,thanks to cornered studio and outdoor shots giving the Comedy a sweet slap-stick element. Whilst the plot does feel like it is on wonky knees,the screenplay by H.M. McCormack (possibly a fake name) dabs the title with a refresh zest aired in the very funny power-play battles between the Briggs and Tierney,as Tom starts to fear becoming a part-time husband.

Unfunny farce

[malcolmgsw · 3/10 · 6 November 2015]

It is difficult to believe that they manage to get so much plot into sixty six minutes.All it needs is Brian Tic losing his trousers and it would be atypical unfunny sixties farce.Anton Rodgers plays an unsuccessful insurance salesman who goes to see his army chum to whom he owes his life.The chum is played by Kenneth J Warren whom I had only ever seen tough villain.Warren runs a car business and Rodgers wants to get his car insurance.However Rodgers doesn't know that the cars are all stolen.Warren is hosting a party where he needs to show his uncle,owner of the business that he is married.So he borrows Rodgers wife,Nurse Dawn Porter.The complications become more complicated and unfunny.Directed by Max Carmel,son of Marcel who knew how to direct comedies.

Saucy farce with Nyree Dawn Porter

[wilvram · 7/10 · 20 June 2013]

Struggling insurance salesman Tom tries to drum up some business with his skirt-chasing old army pal Drew, whom had once - accidentally, unknown to Tom - saved his life. Drew has the kind of rich uncle, most usually found in this kind of farce, who will only entrust him with the family business so long as he's respectably married. Faced with a visit by the uncle from across the Atlantic, Drew needs to find someone pronto to pose as his wife, but none of his regular floozies fit the bill. What to do? He seizes on Tom's desperation and promises him a big insurance deal if his attractive young wife Jenny will masquerade as Drew's until the uncle is out of the way again. Of course, all kinds of compromising situations and other complications ensue. Above all, how can Tom ensure that Drew will keep his lecherous hands off Jenny? This farce has an abundance of stock characters; apart from the uncle there's Tom's ludicrously puritanical and pompous boss, a nosey old gossip of a neighbour and a trio of comical car thieves straight out of a children's matinée of the time. On the other hand a young Anton Rodgers is effective as Tom and Nyree Dawn Porter, some years before her fame in The Forsyte Saga, is charming and lovely as Jenny. Australian Kenneth J. Warren, a popular character actor on British TV in the sixties, and who sadly died young, is amusing as the rascally Drew. Despite the obvious faults, I thought this little movie was fun.

Sniggering, Sexless Sex Comedy

[boblipton · 7/10 · 27 March 2023]

Anton Rodgers hasn't sold enough insurance policies. He realizes his army buddy, Kenneth Warren, runs an auto sales/rental shop, and could be a very lucrative client. Warren is working for his uncle, Henry McCarty, who thinks he is married -- he isn't. As it sorts out, Rodger's wife, Nyree Dawn Porter, pretends to be married to Warren. Stuff ensues.

It's one of those sniggering, sexless sex farces the Brits turned out in the 1960s, full of the anxieties of the collapse of morality of the era. I found several things annoying about it, particularly the the twiddly, uncredited score that informs you you're having a good time even when you're not. Also, director Max Varnel doesn't seem to have much of a hand at directing farce, unlike his father. Nominal lead Rodgers is twitchy, but doesn't offer anything in the way of fun; Warren doesn't seem to enjoy his perfidy, and McCarty is far too straightforward. Surprisingly, Nyree Dawn Porter shows a good deal of facility for comedy, full of wide-eyed innocence, only to puncture that with an occasional cynical remark. As a whole, though, I thought it more rote than amusing.