Training for Husbands

A riotous pre-code domestic farce in which matrimony becomes a gladiatorial arena: Morris, a stout every-husband whose ego balloons like a Zeppelin, is corralled by Moran’s battle-axe spouse into a boot-camp of uxorial obedience—morning marches with a rolling pin, bedtime recitations of grocery lists, and a public-shaming dinner where every under-seasoned potato is Exhibit A in the tribunal of love. Summerville drifts through as a laconic boarder whose trousers seem held up only by situational irony, witnessing the matrimonial arms race escalate from cold silences to hot custards flung like mortar shells. The film’s narrative spine is less a plot than a marital chess match played with teacups and tongues: each gesture of affection weaponised, each apology a Trojan horse. Censors blinked, so the picture luxuriates in double-entendres about ”night exercises” and camera angles that linger on ankles the way noir will later linger on cigarette smoke. In the end the husband, re-tenderised and re-domesticated, signs a tongue-in-cheek surrender treaty—yet the final iris shot closes on Moran’s triumphant smirk, hinting that the next offensive is merely in rehearsal.