Part Time Wife (1961)

Struggling insurance salesman Tom Briggs (a young Anton Rodgers) tries to drum up some business with his skirt-chasing old army pal Drew (Australian actor Kenneth J. Warren) who had once saved Tom’s life (accidentally as it turns out).

Drew is in the motor trade and Tom wants to insure all his cars. What Tom doesn’t know is that Drew also runs a stolen car racket on the side.

Drew, meanwhile, has a rich uncle in Canada who will only entrust him with the family car hire business once he’s a respectable married man.

Faced with a visit by the uncle, a panicking Drew needs to find someone to pose as his wife – but none of his regular floozies fit the bill.

He seizes on Tom’s desperation and promises him a big insurance deal if his vivacious young wife Jenny (Nyree Dawn Porter) will masquerade as Drew’s wife until the uncle is out of the way again.

As with all classic British farces, compromising situations and other complications ensue, involving a cavalcade of stock characters including Tom’s ludicrously puritanical and pompous boss, a nosey old gossip of a neighbour and a trio of comical car thieves straight out of a children’s matinée of the time.

Produced by the Danziger Brothers, Part Time Wife was originally screened in Britain on a double bill with The Day The Earth Caught Fire.

Tom Briggs
Anton Rodgers
Jenny Briggs
Nyree Dawn Porter
Drew Tierney
Kenneth J. Warren
Charles Whitworth
Henry McCarty
Detective
Mark Singleton
Miss Aukland
Susan Richards
Barnsdale
Raymond Rollett
Blonde
June Cunningham

Director
Max Varnel