Stanley Ford (Jack Lemmon) is a successful nationally syndicated cartoonist of the Brash Brannigan secret agent series who lives an idyllic bachelor life with the help of his manservant, Charles (Terry Thomas). When Ford wakes up after a drunken night at friend's bachelor party, he discovers he is now married to the woman who came out of the cake, a beautiful Italian woman who speaks no English (Virna Lisi). At first discomfited by the arrangement, he soon finds himself enjoying married life to the point where it even effects his cartoon strip. When an attempt to put the strip back on track backfires, Ford now finds it being used as evidence against him when he is accused of murdering his bride.