I'll be honest: I wasn't expecting much from this movie. I'd had a hard week and wasn't in the best space with my sweetie-pie, so I wasn't completely in the mood to watch a movie entitled Marriage on the Rocks, but popped it in nonetheless. The next morning, I went out and bought a copy. Turns out, Marriage on the Rocks is a comedy—and a hilarious one at that!
Frank Sinatra and Deborah Kerr are married. I know, it seems incredibly unlikely; especially since they weren't paired up romantically in From Here to Eternity eighteen years earlier, but somehow it works! They're absolutely darling together, but they've reached a rut in their marriage. He works too much, and when he comes home, he's bombarded by family quarrels, so when Deborah wants to go out dancing all night, he doesn't have the energy.
Dean Martin does, though. He plays Frankie's best friend, and he constantly teases Deborah Kerr that she married the wrong man as he joins them for dinner, boogies with her in a go-go nightclub, and picks out jewelry for Frankie to give her. Although on paper, the plot sounds like a drama, the move is chalk-full of quick gags, hilarious jokes, and situational comedy. Even the tiniest touches are funny, like hearkening back to Deborah Kerr's Scottish roots and having her mother, played by Hermione Baddeley, march around the house playing bagpipes. And when Frankie lays down the law with his teenaged daughter and refuses to let her move in with a cage dancer, it's extra cute because Nancy Sinatra plays his daughter! It's no surprise that Frank Sinatra's comic timing is superb, but who would have thought Deborah Kerr's would be, too? She's just delightful in this comedy, and since I don't usually like her, that's quite a compliment. I usually cringe whenever forced to sit through a Dean Martin movie, but if this was the first movie of his I'd seen, I wouldn't dislike him at all. Everyone in this movie is funny and adorable, and the plot hops from one hilarious, impossible situation to another.
This is the perfect movie to rent with your spouse or sweetie-pie if there's trouble in paradise. It'll inspire you and give you lots to laugh about!
Frank Sinatra and Deborah Kerr are married. I know, it seems incredibly unlikely; especially since they weren't paired up romantically in From Here to Eternity eighteen years earlier, but somehow it works! They're absolutely darling together, but they've reached a rut in their marriage. He works too much, and when he comes home, he's bombarded by family quarrels, so when Deborah wants to go out dancing all night, he doesn't have the energy.
Dean Martin does, though. He plays Frankie's best friend, and he constantly teases Deborah Kerr that she married the wrong man as he joins them for dinner, boogies with her in a go-go nightclub, and picks out jewelry for Frankie to give her. Although on paper, the plot sounds like a drama, the move is chalk-full of quick gags, hilarious jokes, and situational comedy. Even the tiniest touches are funny, like hearkening back to Deborah Kerr's Scottish roots and having her mother, played by Hermione Baddeley, march around the house playing bagpipes. And when Frankie lays down the law with his teenaged daughter and refuses to let her move in with a cage dancer, it's extra cute because Nancy Sinatra plays his daughter! It's no surprise that Frank Sinatra's comic timing is superb, but who would have thought Deborah Kerr's would be, too? She's just delightful in this comedy, and since I don't usually like her, that's quite a compliment. I usually cringe whenever forced to sit through a Dean Martin movie, but if this was the first movie of his I'd seen, I wouldn't dislike him at all. Everyone in this movie is funny and adorable, and the plot hops from one hilarious, impossible situation to another.
This is the perfect movie to rent with your spouse or sweetie-pie if there's trouble in paradise. It'll inspire you and give you lots to laugh about!