How to Murder Your Wife Page #7

It's an invention.

It's like the infield fly rule.

It exists only because

the women say so.

And, like idiots,

we just go following right along.

No, no, no, Stan.

I... No, I don't know

what I would do without Edna.

She, uh... she...

Well, she... she plans the meals,

sends my shirts to the laundry.

Harold, you're making another

basic common masculine mistake.

You're confusing love and laundry.

Let me tell you something.

For years now,

a very nice gentleman, who operates,

for reasons I shall never understand,

under the name of Madame Renee,

has been picking up

my shirts every Monday

and bringing them back

beautifully done, every Thursday.

And not once, in all those years,

have I felt the slightest urge to marry him.

Yeah. Well...

How much money do you make, hmm?

Between 70,000 and 80,000 a year.

How much of that 70,000 or 80,000

do you get to spend on yourself?

Well, uh, that, you know,

of course, with Edna and the kids

and the payments on the house in Scarsdale

and then, of course,

I do carry a lot of life insurance.

Yeah, I understand.

Stop for one moment

and think what life could be like if...

Gentlemen of the jury, this concerns

you too. Think what your life could be like

if you'd had the common sense

not to marry... Josephine

or Hilda or Mary

or Peggy or Rochelle.

- Or Edna?

- Edna.

Just think what you could be doing

with that money right now.

Yeah.

Have a little Chris-Craft, maybe.

Get rid of that broken-down

money pit of a house in Scarsdale!

- Oh...

- It's very easy, Harold.

All you've got to do is poke the button.

- Could I grow a moustache?

- Of course.

Put wax on the ends?

Who could stop ya?

I wore one before I was married.

I remember. You cut a dashing figure.

- You think so?

- Push the button.

Uh... well, it was always

a little sparse on the left side.

A barber could trim that so you'd never

even notice it once you push the button.

I never could afford a good barber then...

Yeah, but you could now.

Uh, yeah. But I could now.

When's the last time

you started thinking about girls?

Uh... girls?

Think of a whole world full of girls.

Just think on that.

A world pulsating with girls.

- Models?

- Mm-hm.

- Actresses?

- You know it.

My insurance man's new secretary.

Oh!

Tall girls, thin girls,

small girls, round girls.

Pin-up girls?

Well they don't pin-up anymore,

they fold up, but you're getting the idea.

Instead of that broken-down

money pit of a house in Scarsdale,

you get a town house all for yourself.

With a butler?

Push the button.

Like Charles?

Push the button.

To have the martini glasses

chilling when I come home?

Right. Exactly. All you have to do

is just push the button.

Whoosh! And she just disappears.

Nobody will ever know, Harold.

Just one little push and she's gone.

Just push the button.

No-one will ever know?

Harold!

If you think I've made your life hell,

you'll soon learn the meaning of "suffer"!

Shut up, you old bat!

Besides, you won't feel a thing.

Oh, no!

I'm free!

I'm free! I did it!

Harold!

I did it! I did it!

All right, quiet, everybody.

Just calm down.

Bailiffs, you'd better,

uh, remove this woman here.

Good idea. Throw her out!

I mean, remove her.

Oh, Harold.

Harold? Harold?

What... what time

will you be home for dinner, Harold?

I'll be home whatever time it pleases me.

Of course, I may stop at the club...

Oh.

For a couple of quickies on the way.

That's all, woman. You may go.

Take her out.

Put her in the tank if necessary.

All right.

Gentlemen...

Gentlemen...

I address you not as judge and jury...

but as a fellow American male.

The crime that you have just seen

Harold Lampson commit

in his imagination,

I have been accused

of committing in reality.

Too long has the American man

allowed himself to be bullied,

coddled and mothered and tyrannised

and meant to feel like a feeble-minded idiot

by the female of the species!

Do you realise

the power that you have

in your hand here today?

If one man -just one man -

can stick his wife in the goop

from the gloppetta-gloppetta machine

and get away with it,

oh, boy, we have got it made, all of us!

Hear, hear.

Gentlemen, I did it.

I killed her.

I murdered my wife.

Every charge the District Attorney

has levelled against me is true!

Indeed, I did slip her a mickey.

Brrrrrrp! Blaaaap!

I cold-bloodedly then

fed her into a tomb of goop

from the gloppetta-gloppetta machine!

I ask you to acquit me!

Acquit me

on the grounds of justifiable homicide!

And not for my sake.

For yours.

If we do let him off,

it'll scare the hell out of old Shirley.

I'd go around the world on a tramp steamer.

I could buy a motorcycle.

Gentlemen of the jury,

have you reached a verdict?

Not guilty! Not guilty!

Not guilty! Not guilty!

Ah, thank you.

Well, congratulations, sir.

It will be just like old times again.

Charles, I hope you don't get upset.

I have a confession to make.

I didn't do it.

You didn't do it, sir?

No, no.

Well, if you didn't murder her,

where is she now?

I don't know.

Probably with her mother in Italy.

But, sir,

that means that some fine day,

she may come back here again.

I hope so.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter!

Sir, under American law,

you cannot be tried

for the same crime twice.

They've already acquitted you. If she did

come back, you could legally kill her again.

It would be open season.

One peep out of her and kachow! -

right between the eyes.

It's so good to be home again.

I'll have the whole place

back to normal in a few days.

Goodbye, big gunky lamps.

Farewell, gay little chintzes.

And I'll have you tipping

the scale at 160 pounds...

in no time.

She's in there.

Good God, sir, she's in there.

There you are, sir. Here's your chance.

Go in there and finish her off.

Oh, well, I suppose

if he can put up with her, I can.

Buona sera.

Sono la mamma della Signora Ford.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes