The Battier, The Better: A Review Of Kino Lorber’s Blu-Ray: Irma La Douce
by Rachel Bellwoar
Reteaming Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine from The Apartment with director, Billy Wilder, Irma la Douce is the story of an honest cop (Lemmon) who loses his job and falls in love with a prostitute (MacLaine). When he starts to lose it over her having sex with other people, Nestor hatches a plan where she would only need to see one client – himself, in disguise – but then has to figure out how to finance the scheme.
Like with The Apartment, Wilder co-wrote the script with I.A.L. Diamond and the running gags, especially involving local bar owner, Moustache (Lou Jacobi), are topnotch. Lemmon’s scene stealing facial expressions deserve accolade and the disguise he whips up to trick Irma is actually convincing. The opening scene, where Irma grabs a room key, heading upstairs with a john, reminds me of scenes you see today on HBO’s The Deuce. Unlike The Deuce, there’s no nudity or sex scenes outside of some shots of MacLaine’s bare back.
“Douce” is French for sweet and it’s an adjective that comes up to describe the film as well as Irma but there’s something incomplete in that description. Kat Ellinger talks about prostitution in her commentary, how it’s been portrayed in cinema and how Wilder managed to push Irma la Douce through while the Hays Code was still in place. Irma isn’t a fallen woman. Prostitution is her career and it’s Nestor who has the problem with being a kept man (Ellinger discusses that as well).
Lemmon is so impossible to dislike in Irma la Douce that you try to let it slide but the movie basically ends with him getting what he wants through deception and manipulation. It’s a love story, so we’re told, but Nestor hasn’t let any of his hang-ups over her job go and since it’s hard to see Irma quitting prostitution as a bad thing, you accept the happy ending as it’s sold to you. That’s not what Irma wanted at the start of the movie but it’s hard to tell what she wants at the end, and while it’s possible she’s as happy as the film claims, the ending is too squeaky clean to go unquestioned.
A second film historian commentary by Joseph McBride talks about Wilder’s relationship with Diamond and certain ideas, like playing cards, that Wilder uses again and again. McBride also shares personal anecdotes about seeing the film for the first time in theaters and interviewing Wilder.
By the end of Irma la Douce Nestor is bending metal bars with his bare hands and nobody’s batting an eye. The comedy is much bigger and for some viewers it’ll be a stretch to consolidate this irreverence with what was initially a more realistic picture. For me, Irma la Douce gets better the battier it gets and, whatever grumbles I have about the way Irma’s story is resolved, the ending is when the film starts to sing and come alive. I can’t speak to other Jack Lemmon movies, but if you’re not a fan of his already, Irma la Douce will make you one.
Irma La Douce is available now on Blu-Ray from Kino Lorber.
