Petit Guide pour mari volage

Some background - Walter Matthau's character is a successful man who loves his wife (Inger Stevens) - she is attractive, she and Matthau still do things together and get along. She is prime rib, but no man wants to eat prime rib for 50 years.

So a "A Guide for the Married Man" is exactly what the title indicates. On one level, it is a hilarious comedy in which a philanderer (Robert Morse) senses his friend's (Walter Matthau) restlessness, and then proceeds to school him on how to commit adultery safely. Each principle is illustrated by a skit performed by other comedians of the time.

On another level, it actually provides sage advice for anyone thinking about getting a little on the side. That sage advice is, in the words of Micky Rourke in 1981's "Body Heat" about a completely different subject - "This is not (stuff) for you to be messin' with. Are you ready to hear something? I want you to see if this sounds familiar: any time you try a decent crime, you got fifty ways you're gonna (mess) up. If you think of twenty-five of them, then you're a genius... and you ain't no genius."

So this film is not as trapped in 60's sexual mores as other films of the decade, because married men will always want to rent a house at the beach now and then although that does not mean they want to sell their house in the suburbs and disrupt their way of life. Probably making wives nervous for over fifty years, this is a 60s film still worth seeing.