Unfaithfully yours (Sturges, 1948) #TSPDT #626

A conductor on tour imagines all the different revenges he should take on his wife's perceived infidelities.

This was another great Sturges film. It basically turns on the premise that revenge is easily imagined, but - as they say - "execution is everything". Unfortunately, or rather luckily, the vaunted conductor of a symphony orchestra does not necessarily bring the right skills to the table to perform a laborious and murderous revenge that he figures out in a fit of jealousy.

The first part of the film I felt was rather slow, but the buildup took me in. And once I got to the point where the audience expects something certain to happen, it got simply amazing. So in a sense a lot of the humor is derived from the audience's expectation. But it wasn't just a one-off joke. The whole thing was carefully enough constructed to combine the man's fantasies and the real-life into something great.

Worth watching again, if not for structure then just for the sheer fun of it.

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