Irma la Douce

After four consecutive perfect—or near-perfect—films (Witness for the Prosecution, Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, and One, Two, Three), writer-director Billy Wilder finally stumbles with Irma la Douce, an overlong and cartoonish comedy drama.

The story, set in Paris, sees Jack Lemmon play an ex-policeman who falls for a prostitute, played by Shirley MacLaine, and inadvertently become her pimp, but he doesn’t want her to have any clients.

The problems start early. Wilder, adapting from a successful musical, keeps the story in Paris (at the cost of over a quarter million dollars in set construction) but casts Americans in the leads—except they’re playing Parisians. Putting aside the nagging question of why everyone but Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine has an accent, the first act is rather dull, taking a long time to setup the film’s premise involving Lemmon becoming MacLaine’s pimp.

Fortunately, the second is actually pretty solid. The “Lord X” character is a lot of fun and the film manages some good laughs, but the third act is another drag. By this point, you’re over two hours into a movie that should have been over half an hour ago. Lord X has vanished and the jokes are falling flat. Granted, there’s a very good closing bit that almost takes the bad taste out of your mouth, but not quite.

Perhaps it’s expecting too much from Wilder to knock the ball out of the park every time, but why keep the story set in Paris? Why drop the play’s musical numbers but keep the weak gags? And above all, why, why let it run for two and a half hours? Irma la Douce isn’t a bad film, just a resoundingly mediocre one, which in light of Wilder’s earlier works, can’t help but feel like a disappointment.