How to Murder Your Wife

During a taping of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962), Jack Lemmon told this story. Prior to starting the film, the husband of co-star Virna Lisi made her promise that she would not be talked into doing a nude scene in her first American film. She assured him that she would not, signed the contract and traveled to Hollywood. While filming the "revelation" scene, where Lemmon awakens to discover in horror that he had gotten married at the bachelor party, she had to disrobe and lay in the bed nude but discreetly covered with a sheet. However, it was this day that her husband, an architect, arrived unannounced at the set to surprise his wife. When he walked into the scene, he became very upset. He focused his anger toward Lemmon who, realizing that discretion was the better part of valor, exited the set at full speed with Virna's husband in pursuit. Running past several sound stages on the MGM lot, he quickly found a garbage dumpster, jumped in and closed the cover. He waited there until security officers found him.

In the comic strip detailing the way in which he murdered his wife, Stanley includes a panel showing the purchase of a mannequin. The mannequin, however, is only used to represent his wife for the purpose of taking photos used in the drawing of his strip; it would obviously not be involved in an actual murder plot.

At first, it only says How to Your Wife on the screen, in white letters. Then, the word Murder shows up in red letters in the space between the two rows of text.

Featured in TCM Guest Programmer: Tom Kenny (2005)