Marriage on the Rocks (1965)

(On Cable TV, September 2019) While almost forgotten today, Marriage on the Rocks offers the still-amusing spectacle of seeing Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin as romantic rivals — the first one married, the second proudly single but still pining after the other man’s wife (played by Deborah Kerr). An attempt to transpose the 1930s comedy of remarriage in the 1960s, the film gets kicking in high gear when Sinatra’s character and his bored wife accidentally divorce while in Mexico, and she uses the episode to make him squirm a bit. Contrivances happen, and soon enough she’s just as accidentally wedded to her old flame. Don’t fret — there’s not even a suggestion of inappropriate hanky-panky here even as Sinatra’s character takes the accidental marriage in stride, moves out and encourages his friend to take his place as the head of the household. Comedy is often found in aberrant human behaviour and there’s plenty of that at play here, as the characters experience offence, revenge and counter-revenge. It ends a bit abruptly, but happily. Of course, the fun here is in seeing old Rat-packers Sinatra and Martin banter as friends and then rivals. Among minor amusements is the fact that Sinatra’s daughter Nancy plays Sinatra’s character’s daughter, and a pre-Star Trek DeForest Kelly is seen in a minor role. Marriage on the Rocks is hardly a perfect film — it has some curious lulls, and the style of the film seems stuck in that curious mid-1960s period where the studios were creatively exhausted and beginning to see the possibilities offered by New Hollywood, but not yet ready to make the jump. At times, Marriage on the Rocks feels tamer than the 1930s comedies of remarriage despite its 1960s setting, not quite able to take on the naughtiness of the (innocuous) sex comedies of the time. One suspects that any film featuring the biggest two Rat Packers simply could not get away with racier stuff — their audience was older and less forgiving than the teenage hordes that would redefine American cinema a few years later.