Hitchcoc
Jack Lemmon plays a naive policeman who upsets the apple cart when he leads a raid on a house of ill repute. In the process, he disrupts the balance of trade among the police and the prostitutes and their pimps. Once he beats up Shirley MacLain's pimp, it fall on him to replace the guy. Soon, he has to walk a tightrope to keep his job and care for the woman he has fallen in love with. Shirley is dynamite as Irma and she presents quite a challenge to his moral sense. Something must happen for him to remove himself from suspicion. I have to say that the conclusion to this film is one of the most satisfying I've seen. Don't miss it. It is one of Billy Wilder's outstanding efforts.
lasttimeisaw
Billy Wilder's shark-jumping screwball romp set in le quartier rouge of Paris, couples for the second time the riveting pair from THE APARTMENT (1960), Lemmon plays a goofball cop Nestor Patou, only soon to be discharged from his duty by dint of his impetuous intervention of the local sex industry, and becomes a pimp of the numero uno streetwalker, our titular Irma la douce (MacLaine).Poules and their mecs, this is the basic bundle of the oldest profession, Nestor's foolhardiness and knight errantry conquers Irma right on the spot, not to mention that he also physically defeats her abusive (now ex-)pimp Hippolyte the Ox (Yarnell), a set piece reminiscent of the early silent comedy sketches, rough-hewn, clumsy but laboriously funny. So now Nestor is the red-hot new mec, even been elected as the chairman of the MPPA (Mec's Paris Protective Association), but like any man who has his manhood to protect, as much as he loves Irma, and vice versa, he cannot get over the fact that many a customer can share his darling love's company and body for sexual pleasure, and he in fact lives off her for all the income.A highly specious plan has been hatched with the aid of Moustache (Jacobi), the genial proprietor of the bar around the corner, whose past experiences enlivens the story with its running joke "and that's another story" until a pretty nonsensical but zany finish to leave audience in utter astonishment and amusement. What is the plan? Nester disguises himself as an ageing British gentleman Lord X, who will patronize Irma twice a week, each time offers her 500 francs (the money he would borrow from Moustache), so that, Irma doesn't need to see any other customers thanks to the munificent gestures from Lord X, when Irma gives the money to Nestor, he will return the money back to Moustache.Of course, the plan only sounds plausible on paper, the very first time, almost all the 500 has been squandered on champagnes for celebration. In order to earn extra money to pay back to Moustache, Nestor has to sneak out of their flat in the middle of night every day to work in the local food market, dealing with fish, pork, vegetables and fruits, which exhausts him and he must sneak back in the morning before Irma wakes up. That's where the story goes berserk like a folly propelled by absurd incidents and drollness, up to a point, rationality will be completely thrown out of the window.Marvellously, the viewer will not feel too much of being cheated or exasperated by the outright cop-out into a spuriousness-prone farce, mostly owing to two leading stars' comic aptitude, Lemmon engages in with unswerving gusto, from strictly choreographed slapstick to onerous physical labor, to invite audience to stand by him and pat him on the back no matter how ridiculous the story-line unwinds; MacLaine, on the other hand, oozes deadly sexiness in the common working-girl-with-a-golden-heart formula, it is strange that she receives an Oscar nomination while Lemmon misses, the competition in these two categories are usually not on the same level, especially after Hollywood's Golden Age, the quality of female roles has been drastically dwindled ever since. Moreover, Lou Jacobi should have walked away with at least an Oscar nomination for his firmly supportive but equally opportune scene-stealing act.Among Wilder's tremendous body of work, IRMA LA DOUCE doesn't have any single chance to claim best, but instead, it preserves itself in a niche as an odd experiment whose sole objective is to give audience a buzz, and it has accomplished its goal with admirable dash, no one can deny, that's something only can be manufactured with the help of a master-hand and intelligent-mind.
thinker1691
Among the street people of Paris, there is a saying, 'it costs nothing to hate, but if you wish to make love, it will cost you thirty franks.' The movie "Irma La Douce" meaning, 'Irma the sweet' stems from an original play by Alex Breflort and is adroitly directed by the great Billy Wilder. It tells the story of Nestor Patou (Jack Lemmon) a young idealistic French Policeman, who gets transferred to the 'Red Light' district of Paris France. Unaware of the established economic system between the police and the street prostitutes, he naively orders a raid and among the many surprised clients arrested, Nestor discovers his own boss. Fired from his job, he becomes a pimp for his girlfriend called Irma (Shirley MacLaine). Learning her work involves prostitution, he arranges to become her only client. This creates the Topsy-turvy world which includes the mysterious Lord X. Lou Jacobi is 'Moustache' who explains to the audience how silly a situation can become when plucking chickens. A superior film and one which has become a definite Classic. ****
btm1
I was enchanted by the stage musical comedy on which the film is based. I saw the stage production with fabulous long-legged dancer Juliette Prouse in the role of Irma. As I recall, it was done as a fantasy, with sets that were deliberately non-realistic, sort of cartoonish. In other words, nothing was meant to be taken too seriously, which was just the right tone for the story. Miss Prouse and the production were marvelous.When I saw the film version, I was very disappointed. Not only was it n longer a musical, it had lost all the lightheartedness of the original. Shirley MacLaine once was also a great dancer, making her mark in the stage production of Pajama Game in which she performed the dance for "Steam Heat" (choreographed by Bob Fosse) as the stand-in for Carol Haney who was injured. But there is no dance in the film version.If I hadn't seen the stage production first, perhaps I might have enjoyed the film version better.
