Fucking Day: How to Undress in Front of Your Husband

Marihuana gave us Dwain Esper in panic mode. And left the question: is he fucking with us? Could it be less old Reefer Madness, and more new Reefer Madness?

Nah. This is what it looks like when Esper fucks around—

—and it’s still wild. Better for drug policy, but wild. While I wish the zeitgeist hadn’t beaten “unhinged” to death, that word’s tapped for the foreseeable century. Your grandkids might use it to describe their warlord.

But forget the future. The still above’s from 1937, shortly after we banished sex from movies. Esper didn’t give a shit. How to Undress in Front of Your Husband is a prototype sex comedy, framed as an instructional short. The jokes and wife-hate fall behind drool, until it’s time to punish the fat.

Film’s evolved since then: we accomplish all four at once, at all costs. But let’s watch Dwain innovate. We can learn to heal our marriages and supercharge our film careers, by properly satisfying peeping toms. I’m not being clever.

Sound fun?

Great! Looks unanimous to me.

Once again, Dwain Esper’s teamed up with Hildegarde Stadie, the one writer mad enough to write Marihuana, Maniac, and vows with Dwaine Esper. That’s love. Perhaps they invented Adam Sandler’s trash-fueled getaways. I’d make Birdemic IV for more vacations and less divorce.

The cast’s star-studded, which I learned dangerously late into this recap. Note to self: basic actor recall’s nice for writing about movies. Work on that. Today’s leads are a vaudeville star and a controversy magnet, preparing them for almost anything Hildegarde can come up with. Almost.

To be clear, I don’t disdain celebrity: I respect both actors and Ninja Turtles. And can list the same number of both. Names and faces escape me, just like…purple turtle. The smart one, with a stick. Anyway, this short is Goofus and Gallant for sex appeal.

Elaine Barrie Barrymore (hold that thought) plays Gallant, a hot wife before that meant something else entirely. That seems like a shallow summary, but it’s where her character begins and ends. The short’s main point is that Elaine’s younger than her co-star. And that any punishment for not being Elaine is too kind.

As for Goofus, we have veteran comedian Trixie Friganza. In thirteen minutes, she weathers every known fat joke and a few experimental prototypes. The script reads like a ritual to summon a bulimic god. When it wakes, man shall drown in bile.

We don’t start with them. There’s time to waste, and wives to fix.

The opening crawl riffs on modern life. Specifically, the family’s unsung, unpaid, exploited backbone: husbands. Odd line for an era current sadsacks mourn. If I didn’t know better, I’d call all nostalgia mental anthrax. But I’m nonpartisan. All sanities are valid.

Great question! Let’s take another survey.

I’d call that a split vote. A few sexy laughs should break the deadlock.

Hold up. That last bit’s a way better title card. It even has the whole title. Let’s use that still instead.

Slick.

The crawl seems unwieldy, but it spares us an opening monologue. Dwain can get right to the action. Here’s the opening monologue.

Fun fact: when you type “you’re no longer safe, ladies,” you’re automatically assigned a parole officer. Sex offender registries list you as “pending.” The Warped Tour announces your departure with a heavy heart, and hopes the healing can begin.

The voiceover follows this stealth pornographer:

As he tails this actress:

To reflect his perspective, the camera lingers.

And lingers.

And lingers a bit more.

Establishing our agenda. Whatever I think of the jokes, endless narration, or alien posing, this is about the ankles. Dwain’s feeding a prudish world cheesecake.

The paparazzo’s performance has a manic quality. “Super-peeper” sounds like hyperbole until you see him in action–he’s dedicated to revolutionizing creepshots. Telegram groups don’t exist yet: he’s auctioning these photos off via lower-case telegram.

To spell out the frame: in this mock-PSA, the photographer’s our “husband.” These are educational home invasions. The seductions critiqued are two women in their own bedrooms. The target tone is ribald, and the result is the thriller of the decade. Ice-T’s explaining morphine naps to a bewildered Benson.

That sounds hideous if you don’t inhale new trash every week. My broken psyche’s almost with it, at least as bait for censors. Dwain’s Trojan Horse porno skirts the handholding ban. There’s an odder problem: it’s pointless. Once the narrator introduces Goofus and Gallant, the stalking frame disappears. It’s a hat on top of a felony.

Like I said, Elaine’s our A-student. She lives every moment posing for an invisible crowd or stretching for a nonexistent husband. The narrator’s moved by her marriageability/stalker-friendliness. We should all be a little more like Elaine, unless we want to live.

The narrator really, really wants to fuck. Anyone, really. But mostly Elaine.

While the script says “Hotter Victim,” the casting mattered.

See, one might expect trouble in 1937 for implying someone somewhere thought about sex at some point. That happened here too. But the big dustup for How to Undress in Front of Your Husband was Elaine’s credited name. She’d divorced John Barrymore (yes, related to today’s non-Liu Charlie’s Angels lead/unwatchable talk show host) for being a 1930’s husband. John sued to stop the release. I’m watching it a century later, so you can guess how well that worked. Advantage Elaine.

Then there’s the mutant.

The battle begins.

Brace for monstrosity. For the Thing That Should Not Be. For the sole reason your tax dollars go to six distinct Sentinel Programs. For the shadow to Elaine’s light.

Trixie’s larger and shimmies less. By the end of the film, we’ll learn to avoid both insults. Or Dwain at parties. Or Stadie anywhere. Art’s about finding your own answers. Let’s throw it to a survey.

If you’re dim like me, you might ask why anything’s between “husbands are bored” and “how to make your husband less bored.” If you’re normal, you might wonder why husbands even matter. Both women are alone. If you’re a higher form of life, you remember that they’re not alone. A killer is watching.

Oh well. On to stripping for your spouse/no one/the Hollywood Strangler. We get some worldbuilding: wives were more powerful in the First Age, before the Fall.

Standard fantasy fare. We’re looking for the Avatar of stalking targets. Gallant makes her move:

The narrator’s excited. Organ donor excited. V-E Day excited. I’m struck by how desensitized we are by modern comedies. A lifetime of unlimited streaming punchlines has an effect. Dwain’s audience was content with Tijuana jokebooks, while we need six-man character arcs to maintain laughter.

Trixie parries.

Language evolves, so I’m running on instinct. But “the developing has gone the limit” doesn’t sound like a compliment. Or something you go unstabbed for. The last half is mostly fat jokes, so I assume it’s in that genre. But the line’s just garbled enough that Hildegarde might simply be high on life.

The next round changes things up by gooning over Elaine. That sounds the same, but the intensity’s way up. Maybe there’s a clever bit where the stalker’s the narrator, my brain switched to punchline mode two minutes in. The opening jab at Elaine’s divorce has a nice edge, but the leg-humping kills it.

Once, this made you a sex symbol. This is their “Born By The River,” and I have spicier vacation photos. Dwain loved it enough to make How to Take a Bath with the same lead. It’s like this, except exactly like this.

As for Trixie’s riposte? I didn’t know this many fat jokes existed before cable. Or after cable. I’d love to know which of the Espers lost a fight to someone that eats. The awning line says it wasn’t close. Someone learned about weight classes the Jack Reacher way.

Due to our proud lineage of dumb edits, I should note that “Censored” is an Esper original. I hope Trixie made enough to retire twice.

It goes on like this for two more rounds. “Censored” is the only proper nudity, so fans of Marihuana’s skinny-dipping will leave disappointed. There’s about two minutes of feet, if you’re into grayscale toes. Maybe Hildegarde was. Or it’s all they could show without meeting the Inquisition.

I know, they didn’t. Prince Metternich invented foot kink to distract basic revolutionaries. Let’s focus on the Espers. Once the ankles are in bed, it’s time to revisit the framing device. Our stalker’s been busy.

You know the scene. The premise stumbles home, high and smelling like someone else. You greet them, but you know. And they know that you know. And there’s only silence between you, poisoning the space that once held love. You go to bed, bare, and share one last fat joke.

It’s barely praise, but How to Undress In Front of Your Husband ducked the Hayes Code. The film version of Batman’s decades punching air. For all the vacuity, just existing while lurid is an achievement. Who knows: without the Espers, we might still need two layers of framing to film butts. Or mixed dating. The Hayes Code sucked.

I’m getting soft. Dwain’s the nuttiest director of an insane era. Though his peers tried.

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