Tom Merry & Co of 'The Gem'

[Kashgar]

My better half informs me that the gorgeous Italian actress in 'How to Murder Your Wife' was actually Virna Lisi.
The comic strip the Jack Lemmon character works on in the film is a secret agent strip called 'Bash Brannigan' and as Lew mentions he uses a sort of reverse storyboarding technique to create it in which he hires people to play out his storylines, with he himself cast as his hero Brannigan, while Terry Thomas, his manservant, goes around photographing the action which Lemmon then uses as stills from which he creates his finished strip. The strips that you see in the film were actually the work of cartoonist Mel Keefer whose credits include the syndicated newspaper strips 'Perry Mason' and Rich O'Shay' and as an animator for Hanna-Barbera he also created the images of the central characters in the 1960's cartoon adventure series 'Jonny Quest'.
Re 'Keep it in the Family' the two main stars were Robert Gillespie as the cartoonist and Pauline 'Reggie Perrin' Yates as his wife. I remember Gillespie as having a very dry, laconic style which I remember best from when he played the police station desk sergeant a couple of times in 'Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads'.

[john56peter756brit]

Yes a great film and the shows were good with the actor writer Robert Gillespie.

[philcom55]

The strips that you see in ('How to Murder Your Wife') were actually the work of cartoonist Mel Keefer whose credits include the syndicated newspaper strips 'Perry Mason' and Rich O'Shay' and as an animator for Hanna-Barbera he also created the images of the central characters in the 1960's cartoon adventure series 'Jonny Quest'.

Interestingly the legendary comicbook, animation and (very briefly) Fleetway artist Alex Toth claimed that he was originally hired for this role, but walked out following a difference of opinion.

- Phil Rushton

[john56peter756brit]

many years ago i used to have a book that was given out to artists for reference it had all the hanna barbera characters in it from Johnny Quest to the Jetsons and that was mostly Alex Toth Art.