As he conducts a symphony in a crowded concert hall, an esteemed musician imagines different ways to deal with his wife's reported infidelity in this Preston Sturges comedy. Rex Harrison is perfectly posh, snobby and indignant in the lead role, though his character is more than a little hard to relate to as he simply assumes that his wife has been unfaithful based on hearsay without ever confronting her and without any real evidence. In this regard, the film plays out a lot like 'Othello', though with a pronounced black comedy streak as some of Harrison's imagined solutions to the issue are really rather grisly. In arguable bad taste or not, 'Unfaithfully Yours' is laugh-out-loud funny at its best with the zaniest moments coming from Harrison later trying to act on his imagined scenarios, only to find himself foiled by unreliable technology and other things that get in the way. The film is incredibly slow to build up though, with over 45 minutes elapsing before Harrison starts to concoct revenge scenarios. While this build-up does allow us to get under his skin a bit better, it also makes him seem all the more foolish for not doing anything more to confirm the suspected infidelity. A rather nice touch of the movie is how his anger gives him the fuel to conduct more brilliantly than ever, but this is not a first rate Sturges comedy, even if it certainly never once bores.

This film brings us Rex Harrison already foreshadowing Professor Higgins. He tries out the arrogant, picayune, verbally acute role and is absolutely successful. The seed is planted and we, who know what is to come twenty years hence, rub our hands gleefully in anticipation of Higgins. But Linda Darnell is no Eliza. Instead, she is a loving, docile, trusting wife, already dressed as though she will be meeting the Queen and looking beautiful and so very desirable.The dialog crackles and moves fast. Only Rex Harrison and perhaps Cary Grant could have have delivered with the wit and brio that Sturges deserved.There are two extended slapstick scenes that should have been cut shorter.Edgar Kennedy as a Private Eye has a couple of great scenes when he turns out to be a classical music devotee and is knowledgeably enthusiastic about Harrison's conducting.A digression: Harrison tosses a couple of tickets to the Philharmonic concert, they are orchestra tickets a few rows from the front row. Price $3.80, designated as "Patron"' seats.

Symphony conductor Rex Harrison discovers his wife Linda Darnell has been unfaithful to him, or so it seems, according to a detective's investigation and report, requested by brother-in-law Rudy Vallee, who misunderstood Rex's parting words (while he was on tour) "of looking after my wife" and of whom Rex does not like, at all.While this movie is good, (and I don't say this very often if ever, but...), it has earned a somewhat overrated reputation over the years. It is funny in parts and it has class in spades, but its ending lays kind of flat given all the build-up to it. Its main attribute is Rex's hammy performance. He's the whole show, with all his emphatic and vociferous syllables, including Rudy Vallee jokes that Rudy is a bore. (It's ironic that Rudy's singing career in the 20s and 30s made him such a ladies' man celebrity and sensation, but in movies he's typecast as a stuffed shirt.) Overall, you may like this, and you will definitely laugh throughout the film, but there's no last laugh that leaves you smiling out the door.

A conductor suspects his wife of cheating and dreams up elaborate plots to exact revenge. This was the last hurrah for Sturges, the greatest comedy writer/director of the 1940s. While not as polished as such early masterpieces as "The Lady Eve" and "Sullivan's Travels," it is quite amusing. Harrison is well cast as the flustered conductor, although he tends to deliver his lines so rapidly at times that subtitles would have been helpful. Darnell looks gorgeous as his wife, and Vallee is funny as his brother-in-law. The scenes with the recording machine are hilarious. Rossini's "Semiramide" Overture gets quite a workout, played three times in its entirety.