Your Money or Your Wife

Cast

Donald Sinden as Pelham Butterworth

Peggy Cummins as Gay Butterworth

Richard Wattis as Hubert Fry

Peter Reynolds as Theodore Malek

Georgina Cookson as Thelma Cressingdon

Gladys Boot as Mrs. Compton Chamberlain

Barbara Steele as Juliet Frost

Betty Baskcomb as Janet Fry

Olive Sloane as Mrs. Withers

Ian Fleming as the judge

Candy Scott as the maid

Noel Trevarthen as the chauffeur

Production

Donald Sinden recalled the film in his memoirs:

Oh dear. Unfortunately it was made on the cheap and little care had been taken turning a script, intended to be played in one permanent setting, into a film. It was merely chopped into sections: one to be played in the living room, another in the bedroom, the next in the garage, the next in the kitchen. This left endless shots of actors walking in silence from one place to another before continuing the dialogue. As someone wisely pointed out, a movie means that the action should move — not the camera.

Box office

In April 1960 Kinematograph Weekly reported the film "hasn't made a big impact on the box-office. The film is good in parts, but let’s face it, it’s hardly a vintage comedy."

Critical reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin said "This is an erratic mixture of light comedy and broad farce, the rules of both styles being treated with something very like contempt. Peggy Cummins and Donald Sinden labour solemnly, but a wordy, static script curbs their style and robs the rest of the cast stuck with familiar characterisations of incomprehensible bearded foreigners, over-sexed misunderstood spinsters, etc.— of all spontaneity. Such action as there is grinds to a halt every time a loose stair-rod or an overflowing glass of milk urgently telegraphs."

Variety said "Here is an inept little comedy of unremitting silliness, nothing of the wit of which the screenplay writer, Roland Jeans, has shown himself capable of in the past. Popularity of the stars, Donald Sinden and Peggy Cummins, may make it a useful filler for undiscriminating British houses. But on the whole the entire project can be written off as a sad mistake."

In the Radio Times, David Parkinson gave the film one out of five stars, writing, "Nice title, shame about the movie ... Both screenwriter Ronald Jeans and director Anthony Simmons seemed to think that an abundance of slapstick, a little innuendo and bags of mugging would be enough to have the audience in convulsions."

In British Sound Films: The Studio Years 1928–1959 David Quinlan rated the film as "poor", writing: "Very heavy farce, the performances smack of desperation."