How to Lose a Wife and Find a Lover

In the 1970s, the Italians made use of relaxed censorship conditions by considerably sexing up their comedies - even slapstick comedies such as this one. This process sometimes helped staging intrinsically sexual situations (e.g. a cheating spouse caught in the act), but more commonly was exploited to add gratuitous nudity.

Most of these sexy comedies from that era had slapstick elements of some form, but this movie goes further and shifts the balance towards slapstick. In other words, we have here a sexy comedy but also a slapstick comedy. There is a problem when these subgenres are combined, and it is: pace. Slapstick requires actions to be fast and furious, but erotic elements need a much slower pace to work best. This film implements a corresponding shift of gear to accommodate both moods, but the shift itself is at times abrupt and unconvincing.

Johnny Dorelli is much more bearable than the usual comedy males of the genre (Alvaro Vitali, Lino Banfi, Gianfranco D'Angelo, etc.), or at least his brand of humour travels better - he is less of a clown and more of a comic actor. Female lead Barbara Bouchet plays it straight, but she had hardly a choice - Italian comedies of that time use women as objects of adoration, not to carry the comedic elements.

The overall result does not quite work, but does not completely fail either. The unusual combinations of moods leaves it as an interesting curiosity.