292 Unfaithfully Yours

[HerrSchreck]

I mentioned in an edit above something I forgot about the box set-- Morgans CReek is not included, so that's a seperate buy..

[puxzkkx]

I just saw Unfaithfully Yours and while it was very funny and pretty bravura formally (! - those track/zooms during the concert) am I the only one who was bothered by its implication that a man who plots seriously - seriously - to murder his wife can be

SpoilerShow

redeemed simply by discovering he was wrong about her infidelity

?

Obviously it is a black comedy, but I don't feel like it is self-critical enough when it comes to the ending.

[lubitsch]

Obviously it is a black comedy, but I don't feel like it is self-critical enough when it comes to the ending.

Where do you see any redemption? Harrison is the same lunatic as before and likely to go off on the next occasion, while we know nothing about Darnell and her fidelity.

[puxzkkx]

You get a kiss, you get a surging score, you get some sweet nothings from Harrison and you basically get proof that Darnell is/was faithful - the final scene is played as romantic as can be.

[matrixschmatrix]

Which, given the context of the rest of the film, is either meant to be taken as a final irony or an indication that the entirety of the rest of the film is essentially meaningless twaddle in Rex Harrison's head. To me, the fact that both seem to be true simultaneously- that it's both the story of an exceedingly silly man who can't be taken seriously even when he thinks he's going to do something terrible and of an operatic tragedy that fizzles amusingly- is one of the delights of the work.

[puxzkkx]

I dunno, given the low key in which "you do like to do little things for me, don't you?" is played I got the impression of sincerity from that final scene. But to each his own.

[Roger Ryan]

I suspect that Sturges was concerned that the film might have trouble with the studio/censors if he ended the story on a darker note, especially since the lead is largely unsympathetic throughout. I see the ending as a little jab at film conventions in the same way that the twist ending in THE PALM BEACH STORY comes out of nowhere to solve all of the characters' problems in a hilariously contrived way. It probably would have been more fun if UNFAITHFULLY YOURS concluded with a big laugh (like PALM BEACH does), but there's no way the ending can negate everything that has come before it; a conventional finale to an unconventional film is perverse in its own way. At any rate, Sturges' original is significantly better, funnier and, yes, more perverse than the dismal 80s remake with Dudley Moore.

[swo17]

I don't recall him "plotting seriously to murder his wife," just fantasizing about it.

[zedz]

You're married, right?

[knives]

I don't recall him "plotting seriously to murder his wife," just fantasizing about it.

At the climax of the film after the concert he makes a 'serious' effort to enact one of the plans but fucks it up.

[swo17]

You're married, right?

What are you, a cop?

[zedz]

You're married, right?

What are you, a cop?

[writes in notebook] Appears very defensive when his wife-killing fantasies are mentioned. Seems to be eyeing very sharp letter opene