Rent Irma La Douce (1963)

Lemmon Souffle! - Irma La Douce review by mc

As the Narrators intro at the beginning could clue us in, this is a ‘tall tale’ in the vein of 'Baron Munchhausen' or 'The Grand Budapest Hotel'. From the same creative team behind 'Some Like It Hot', Wilder, Lemmon & Diamond, this takes the successful elements of ‘The Apartment’ and that film and revisits the success of both. The chemistry between the two leads from 'The Apartment', Shirley Maclaine & Lemmon, is as strong here as in the earlier Oscar winner, but with the addition of the sex-appeal and set-pieces of the legendary Monroe smash. This time, a busty Maclaine plays the sexy Gold-digger-with-a-heart-of-gold while the ‘Cary Grant’-alike we remember from Tony Curtis is encore’d here by Jack Lemmon’s ‘English Lord’, right up to the seduction scene. If it is a tour de force, the force being Jack Lemmons personality, it must also be said, the whole is shoe-horned into a slightly overcooked souffle which ends up taking 2 ½ hours to get to the table. Even so, there’s still more to keep us filmically entertained. There’s a rousing musical score under Andre Previn, there are sets from Gay Paree as lavish as any musical, and the flat-out gorgeously coloured technicolour is ‘to die for’ in place of the moody monochrome of both earlier works. Be sure to check out the flashes of emerald green in Lemmons wedding suit! Allow your eye to wander at length over the rich multicoloured paisleys in the hotel room with 'his Lordship'. Irma’s apartment is convincingly up multiple flights of stairs (if you have been to Paris you will know!) but notice the eye-catching bedhead as the centrepiece of a wonderfully modern-looking shabby-chic décor.

Ultimately it is the jokes that one misses, though this third offering has its moments:

Maclaine: (after telling Lemmon to move in) What? Don'cha like the idea?

Lemmon: I like the idea I just had no… idea

Or

Lemmon ( after claiming delay due to fog) is accosted by Maclaine:

Something different about you… wasn’t that patch on the other eye?

Lemmon: Oh yes, right (swaps the patch). No wonder it was foggy!

'The Apartment' and even more so 'Some Like It Hot' had a verbal quick-wittedness which keeps the first fresh on viewing today and the second central in ones affections over the years. Irma La Douce is required viewing for those who care to witness Jack Lemmon’s talents on full show, but like a souffle, it is unlikely to live on in the memory as one of the great meals, unless as part of a wider confection.

Musical Without Songs. - Irma La Douce review by Steve

This is an adaptation of a French stage musical, but it junked all the songs. That leaves a magnificent comedy premise set in the Parisian lower quarter. Jack Lemmon is a naive gendarme who accidentally becomes the pimp of Irma la Douce (Shirley MaLaine). When he falls in love with her, he creates an alter-ego, an English lord to give her enough francs so she doesn't need any other johns.

But his plan runs aground because the ex-copper has to work all night to make enough money to give to Irma to keep her off the streets. Feeling shunned by her exhausted protector she plans to elope with the attentive aristocrat. Voila! Lemmon kills his creation and goes to prison. What a brilliant plot for a farce!

The location photography of the city is attractive, and the sets and decors are wonderful, a comical pastiche of Parisian low-life. The weakness is Wilder and IAL Diamond's variable script which lacks wit, even if its morality conveys typical Wilder cynicism. It's the situations that are often funny.

MacLaine and Lemmon are predictably excellent and keep just enough reality on screen for us to care. It's yet another occasion in the sixties she played a sex worker. There's a note of sadness in her which gives the farce a little necessary weight. Curious that the two main characters spend so much time playing cards together, just as Shirley and Jack did in The Apartment.