Marriage on the Rocks

Marriage on the Rocks (1965), starring Frank Sinatra, Deborah Kerr, Dean Martin

Product Description of Marriage on the Rocks

 What do you do when you have a beautiful house, two great children, and a Marriage on the Rocks? If you’re bored Val Edwards (Deborah Kerr), you swap your fuddy-duddy hubby Dan (Frank Sinatra) for his swingin’ bachelor best friend Ernie (Dean Martin). Watch the sparks fly! Ol’ Blue Eyes breezes through this romantic comedy romp at the head of an all-star cast. Along for the laughs are frequent Sinatra co-stars Martin, Cesar Romero, and Tony Bill, plus daughter Nancy Sinatra and Kerr. The fun starts when the Edwards take a second honeymoon in Mexico. Once there, they fall into the hands of the quickie-divorce/quickie-marriage lawyer Romero. Faster then jumping beans, everybody’s unhitched, rehitched, confused, confounded, and cohabitating. But Dan has the right attitude. “We had a bad marriage”, he says. “Let’s have a happy divorce!”

Cast

• Frank Sinatra (High Society) … Dan Edwards. The quiet, boring, family man.
• Deborah Kerr (Quo Vadis) … Valerie Edwards. Dan’s wife, mother of the children. She wants more out of life.
• Dean Martin (Scared Stiff) … Ernie Brewer. Uncle Ernie. He likes to interview attractive secretaries — on a recurring basis. A carefree bachelor, who doesn’t want to be married. Ever. But in Mexico …
• Cesar Romero (Two on a Guillotine) … Miguel Santos.
• Hermione Baddeley (The Secret of NIMH) … Jeannie MacPherson. Dan’s overbearing, live-in mother-in-law.
• Tony Bill … Jim Blake
• John McGiver (Fitzwilly) … Shad Nathan
• Nancy Sinatra … Tracy Edwards. Dan and Valerie’s daughter.
• Davey Davison … Lisa Sterling
• Michel Petit … David Edwards
• Trini López … Trini Lopez
• Joi Lansing (Hillbillys in a Haunted House) … Lola. Uncle Ernie’s latest secretary.
• Darlene Lucht … Bunny
• Kathleen Freeman (The Disorderly Orderly) … Miss Blight
• Flip Mark … Rollo
• DeForest Kelley (Star Trek) … Mr. Turner
• Sigrid Valdis (Hogan’s Heroes) … Kitty

Editorial review of Marriage on the Rocks courtesy of Amazon.com

This time capsule from a bygone era features an amazing Dean Martin bachelor pad and the delectable sight of Frank Sinatra go-go dancing in a rock club. Such campy pleasures are the main appeal of Marriage on the Rocks, a sitcom-style comedy about marital dissatisfaction and legal confusion. Sinatra’s been married to Deborah Kerr for 19 years, but her boredom with his stick-in-the-mud personality has her leaping to shake things up–especially when a Mexican vacation accidentally divorces the two. How Dino gets himself wedged into this mess is the stuff of labored farce.

The two Rat Pack buddies have done this so many times they barely rouse themselves to mix the highballs, with only the presence of Frank’s daughter Nancy, in a supporting role, stirring the fatherly spark. Trini Lopez contributes a song, in the aforementioned nightclub, and Cesar Romero has a buffoonish role as a do-everything Mexican local official. The whole enterprise has the air of hedge-betting about it, and everybody looks as though they’re fulfilling a contractual obligation. –Robert Horton