Bob Hope and Jackie Gleason request the honor of your presence at a swinging session on How to Commit Marriage.

Frank Benson (Bob Hope) and his wife, Elaine (Jane Wyman), decide to end their marriage after 20 years. Their daughter, Nancy (Joanna Cameron), announces she wishes to marry her college sweetheart, David Poe (Tim Matheson). David's father, Oliver (Jackie Gleason), is against the union and tries to sabotage the relationship. Nancy ends up pregnant and puts the baby up for adoption. Frank and Elaine become the foster parents to their grandchild. Frank poses as the young couple's guru to get them to raise the child themselves. Leslie Nielsen plays Phil, a divorced man who dates Elaine, while Frank takes up with Lois (Maureen Arthur). Comedy ensues when, at Oliver's urging, Frank and Elaine join the rock group the Comfortable Chair. Another sequence has a chimpanzee beating a frustrated Frank easily in a game of golf.

How to Commit Marriage is a 1969 comedy film directed by Norman Panama, featuring Bob Hope and Jackie Gleason in their only movie together. The film also stars Jane Wyman as Hope's wife, Tina Louise as record-producer Gleason's love interest, Leslie Nielsen as the straight man, and Irwin Corey as a middle eastern guru named "The Baba Zeba." Also in the cast is young Tim Matheson making his film debut.

This was Jane Wyman's final film appearance.

The rock band The Comfortable Chair appears as a hippie rock group, performing their song "A Child's Garden."

Just as real estate agent Frank Benson and his wife, Elaine, decide to divorce, their 19-year-old daughter, Nancy, announces that she and her college boyfriend, David Poe, are going to be married. David's father, Oliver, a cynical rock and roll entrepreneur, vehemently opposes the idea; consequently, when he accidentally finds a copy of the Benson's divorce settlement, Oliver turns the wedding ceremony into a shambles by branding the Bensons as hypocrites. Heartbroken, Nancy and David decide to live together and go on tour with a rock group. Since it is no longer necessary to keep up appearances, Frank moves out of his home and takes up with buxom divorcée Lois Grey, while Elaine finds solace with Phil Fletcher, who is also divorced. When Frank and Elaine learn that Nancy is pregnant and that she intends to follow the advice of Baba Ziba, a Hindu mystic, and give the child up for adoption, they arrange to adopt the baby themselves. Though Nancy and David are unaware of their child's foster parents, Oliver suspects the truth and sets out to expose the Bensons. Desperate, Frank tries to bribe Baba Ziba into persuading Nancy and David to reclaim the baby; when this venture fails, Frank dons the Indian's garments and goes on stage to plead for young people to accept responsibilities. Though Frank is unmasked, Nancy and David are convinced to take their baby back. Frank and Elaine are then reunited, and Oliver marries his longtime mistress, LaVerne.

Release Date: July 9, 1969

Distrib: Columbia Pictures