I Married a Woman

Diana dors is hot! But that's all! The writing is so bad, and the lead actor is so annoying, I can't dumb myself down to watch. I did watch the film, but I kept saying aloud, "this is so dumb!" The writing and characters are so weak and dumb. Had potential but I watched and it's so bad.

"I Married a Woman" is a most unusual movie in 1956...in addition to having a pretty dumb title. After being made, it sat on the shelf for two years before ultimately being released. Usually this means the film is god-awful and the studio is afraid to release it. But in this case it happened because the studio, RKO, was in a financial crisis and suspended production on everything! And so, they sat until eventually some deal was made to have Universal Studios release the films.

In "I Married a Woman", George Gobel plays a very boring man, Mickey Briggs, who is married to a knock-out wife, Janice (Diana Dors). Despite this, he seems mostly indifferent to the woman and thinks mostly about work....even though most men would envy him for having such a pretty wife. For instance, in one part of the film, she wants to go see a romantic film...and Mickey acts as if he's being forced to eat glass when he goes with her! And, again and again, Janice laments that Mickey is so indifferent to her...and she wishes he was like he used to be when they were dating. It's so bad that Janice even tries to make him jealous...just to get SOME sort of reaction! Later, she thinks Mickey's indifference is because he's been cheating on her...mostly because she's been egged on by her awful mother! This is an interesting reversal...something audiences probably didn't expect! What's next? See the film....and see just how bad the Briggs marriage become.

So is this any good? Well, yes and no. I like the general idea of the film. But I also must say that after a while I felt a bit annoyed by the film, as the characters seemed like jerks. Mickey was a very inattentive husband. Phyllis was a very annoying wife. And Phyllis' wife needed a good kick in the pants! I don't normally feel this way when I watch a film....and I think the writers didn't quite hit the mark and they should have softened the characters a bit. As a result, the film felt more like a sitcom than a movie. However, I did enjoy John Wayne's cameos...particularly the one at the end of the picture!

One of those frustrating comedies in which misunderstandings arise because the characters fail to talk to one another. Stand-up comic George Gobel is an ad exec married to Diana Dors (before weight gain turned her into a plump parody of the sex-bomb she once was), who used to be the model for his agency's leading client. A few bright spots - but not many - and Gobel and Dors come across as a second-rate Ewell and Monroe.

I guess George Goebel was a popular enough as a TV comedian that it was worth a try at seeing what he could do on the big screen. But outside of the peculiarities of his show, such as constantly turning to the audience and explaining what he's thinking, or anticipating what's to follow in a skit he's in, he is as generic a comic actor as could be. This story is equally generic, and typically of late RKO films and perhaps Hollywood comedies of the 1950's, a generally safe, monotonous atmosphere prevades. Goebel is cast as an advertising man with an overstated, mountain out of a molehill problem of writing some ad copy, and a similar problem with his marital relations. Though he struggles through endless rewrites and sleepless nights, his job problem seems easily accomplished to us non-ad men. If it weren't for needless, plot extending meddling by his boss, the story could have been halved. Goebel is married to georgeous blonde Diana Dors, which would seem unlikely on the face of it, considering how mild-mannered and less than he-man a catch George would be, but Diana herself always seemed quiet and mild and ladylike in most every film or guest appearance on TV I've ever seen, despite the sexy, bombshell exterior. Maybe it's her British reserve. She's beautiful but calm. She plays a scatterbrain, running on impulse power, making petty schemes to con George into doing or buying things, assisted by her equally devious mother. She instigates a twist in the story to make Goebel jealous, while his boss is setting him up in an ad campaign he doesn't know he's in, and it's all handled in so dull a way it makes one think how much livelier it would have been if it were compacted into the short space of a TV program, where this story really belonged. An interesting gag in it was getting John Wayne to play in an imaginary movie scene playing in a theatre, that's in color, whereas the rest of the film, i.e. the "real life" scenes are black and white. Later, George and Diana meet John Wayne, and he's still in color, though now NOT on a movie screen, until his wife shows up, and they go to half color, half black and white, then he too, joins her in the all black and white world. I speculate what that means, if there's supposed to be a message about percieved "reality" of film, or the debilitating conseqence of marriage?

I Married a Woman was made in 1958 at the height of George Gobel's career. George is playing his usual henpecked character from television with an overbearing boss, an interfering mother-in-law, a dissatisfied advertising client and a few other things that make his life an adventure. But if you were married to the statuesque Diana Dors, somehow a lot of those problems would seem small. They don't for Mr. Gobel.

Gobel was a very big name in television at this time with a Saturday night variety show for NBC at 10:00 pm. I still remember from my youth the booming TV announcer for NBC announcing their fabulous Saturday night line up of COMO, CAESAR, GOBEL. It was sure superior to NBC's line up now.

Watching George Gobel for me is a piece of nostalgia. And looking at the shapely Diana Dors in a tight dress is reason enough itself to watch this film. Gobel's humor doesn't quite translate to the big screen however. You get the feeling you're watching one long skit from his old TV show.

One of the gags that doesn't quite work is have John Wayne make an unbilled appearance as Diana Dors's idea of a romantic leading man. Romantic? John Wayne? Wayne makes two appearances in the film. In a movie theater where Gobel and Dors are watching the Duke and Angie Dickinson mouthing some meaningless romantic dialog with the Duke looking quite debonair.

I have to believe that this was a gag meant for someone like Cary Grant or Tyrone Power who were great romantics on the screen. The Duke just looks ridiculous doing this. Maybe that in itself was a gag.

I'll let you be the judge if you see this film.