Irma la Douce Reviews

I’m usually not a big fan of Billy Wilder’s comedies but since this one had a solid reputation, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, to be honest, I really struggled to care about the damned thing, in fact, even more than I expected. Indeed, Wilder was a great director and I loved pretty much all his dramas but I was never really impressed by his comedies and this one was probably the most tedious of the bunch, at least, among the movies I have seen so far from this director. I mean, I can understand the potential of reuniting the same director, actor and actress who gave us the successful ‘The Apartment’ (a classic comedy which already barely worked for me). However, in this case, I was basically scratching my head through the whole thing wondering where they were going with this tale. Eventually, I’m not surprised that it was originally a musical which might explain why the story was so flimsy. However, another bewildering thing was how long the damned thing was, especially after Wilder removed all the dances and songs from the original musical. At least, there is no denying that Shirley MacLaine was incredibly cute back in those days (in fact, MacLaine herself didn’t care much for this movie at all and I was really surprised to be nominated for an Academy Award for this movie). Concerning Jack Lemmon, he was not bad but he basically played the same character he played in all Wilder’s comedies. In fact, the only really funny character turned out to be the one played by Lou Jacobi who pretty much stole the show every time he showed up. Anyway, to conclude, even if the damned thing really didn’t work for me, I guess it is still worth a look if you really like the genre.