Blogathon: The Oscars - Best Actress 1963

Shirley MacLaine received her third of five Best Actress Academy Award nominations for her role in “Irma La Douce” (1963). She plays the title character, a good-natured hooker whose specialty is – no, nothing sexual – coming up with sob stories to scam a little extra money from her clients. Stories like how she’s only a working girl in order to make money to help rebuild the orphanage that harbored her during the war. Out comes the extra money from her sympathetic johns.

Director Billy Wilder envisioned Marilyn Monroe in the role, but when she died Wilder offered the role to MacLaine. In retrospect, it seems a no-brainer since Wilder would be re-teaming MacLaine with Jack Lemmon from “The Apartment” (1960), and what made more sense than to have the female lead from that classic join them again. MacLaine accepted the role without reading the script because she was anxious to re-team with her Apartment buddies.

While she’s wonderful and fresh and in the movie, giving her character a pixie-like spirit and a case of mischief, I still think it may be the least of her five nominated performances. She’s fine in it but there’s nothing here she didn’t do before and better. However, the film was one of 1963’s biggest hits and I think that helped cement her nomination. For the record her other Best Actress nominations were “Some Came Running” (1958), “The Apartment” (1960), “The Turning Point” (1977) and “Terms of Endearment” (1983), for which she finally won the coveted gold statue. Her Irma lost to Patricia Neal in “Hud” that year.

Despite Irma’s name being in the title, the movie really belongs to Jack Lemmon, in another gem of a comedic performance. He plays a very naïve police rookie named Nestor Patou who calls for a raid on the neighborhood bordello. One of the bordello’s customers happens to be an enraged chief of police (Herschel Bernardi) who fires Nestor.

Nestor had previously met Irma at a bar and they fall in love with each other. Upon learning her profession, and now determined to keep her off the streets, he becomes an eccentric English nobleman, Lord X, who promises to visit her twice a week and give her 500 francs for each visit on the condition he becomes her only customer.

Lord X is a dandy dresser and sports a white eye patch. Speaking in an exaggerated accent, Lord X loves to brag about his war exploits, which seem to come mainly from watching movies. Let’s see, Lord X tells Irma he exploded some big guns on the island of Navarone, helped sink the Bismarck and hurt himself when the exploding bridge on the River Kwai fell on top of him.

A later meeting with Irma also reveals he rode with Lawrence, participated in the Charge of the Light Brigade, knew Gunga Din, was a Bengal Lancer and even sailed to Tahiti with Captain Bligh!

Nestor has the assistance of the coffee shop owner across the street, Moustache (Lou Jacobi), who offers comedic asides on the situation. Wilder wanted Charles Laughton for the role, but like Monroe, died before filming. He was replaced by Jacobi, who is hilariously deadpan.

Nestor takes several jobs to earn the money that he, as Lord X, gives to Irma. He’s too tired to do anything else and when Irma models a new see-through negligee for him and he falls asleep, she begins to suspect he’s exhausted because he’s seeing another woman. Concurrently, Nestor also begins to be jealous of Irma’s growing infatuation with Lord X.

This is prime Wilder material here, a breezy sex farce involving faked identities played to comedic extremes.

The prostitution on display her is somewhat glamorized, even though early on we see Irma slapped around by her pimp Hippolyte (Bruce Yarnell). Still, Wilder treats prostitution as a fact of life and not a hand-wringing social problem. The girls are hard working professionals, just like a secretary or a housewife. It’s likely that Wilder’s past profession as a gigolo in 1920s Berlin made him sympathetic to the working girls on display here.

“Irma La Douce” was originally a musical play by Alexandre Breffat. Wilder and his co-screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond augment the play, changing Nestor from a student to a rookie policeman. Many who saw and loved the musical were disappointed to see a non-musical treatment of the material. I’ve read Wilder started out filming it as a musical but thought it wasn’t working and made it a straight comedy. How ironic then that the film’s sole Academy Award win was to composer Andre Previn in the Best Score – Adaptation or Treatment category. (The film was also nominated in the Best Cinematography – Color category).

As amusing as the film is, it has its flaws. Like much of Wilder’s later works, it goes on too long. It runs 143 minutes and could easily lose about 20 minutes. And as good as MacLaine is, she really doesn’t get a chance to shine. While Lord X is going on and on about his ridiculous exploits, there are curiously no reaction shots of Irma. She just goes on playing solitaire. I never knew how she really felt about Lord X, except as an easy meal ticket. Her feelings for him later on seem to come from left field. It’s a good performance, but not a great one.

I was proud to participate in this mini blogathon looking at the Best Actress Academy Award race of 1963. For those interested to see who MacLaine’s competition was that year, I invite you to check on these other entries.

Monday, Feb. 21: Classic Film and TV Cafe will profile Rachel Roberts, nominated for "This Sporting Life" NOW POSTED!
Tuesday, Feb. 22: Kevin's Movie Corner will present Shirley MacLaine in "Irma La Douce"
Wednesday, Feb. 23: Classicfilmboy will cover Leslie Caron in "The L-Shaped Room"
Thursday, Feb. 24: ClassicBecky's Film and Literary Review will examine Patricia Neal in "Hud"
Friday, Feb. 25: Noir and Chick Flicks will look at Natalie Wood in "Love With the Proper Stranger"