Irma la Douce
A story of passion, bloodshed, desire and death... everything, in fact, that makes life worth living.
Irma la Douce (1963)
Timing:
2:27 (147 min)
7.428/10
397
397
7.501/10
2674
2674
7.3/10
20670
20670
Country
Production
Genre
Comedy, Romance
Budget
$5 000 000
Revenue
$25 200 000
Director
Actors
Shirley MacLaine, Jack Lemmon, Lou Jacobi, Bruce Yarnell, Herschel Bernardi, Hope Holiday, Joan Shawlee, Grace Lee Whitney, Paul Dubov, Howard McNear
All actors and roles (10)
All actors and roles (10)
Scenario
Producer
Operator
Composer
Artist
Audition
Editing
Daniel Mandell
All team (11)
All team (11)
Short description
Nester Patou, a naive police officer, is transferred to the red light district in Paris and organizes a raid on a dodgy hotel running as a brothel. In doing so he inadvertently disrupts the corrupt system of the police and the pimps union, and even nets his station superior. Fired from his job, Nester goes to the local bar for a drink and befriends a pretty young lady named Irma la Douce. Upon realizing she is a prostitute, Nester invents a crazy scheme to keep her from seeing other men.
What's left behind the scenes
- Filming period: October 1962 – February 1963.
- Billy Wilder was twice unlucky with the actors he wanted to cast in this film. First, Marilyn Monroe died in August 1962, with whom he dreamed of working again after the comedy 'Some Like It Hot' (1959), and then Charles Lawton died, to whom Wilder planned to give the role of the diner owner nicknamed 'Whiskers'.
- Elizabeth Taylor could have played the leading role, but as Wilder recounted, she was at that moment engrossed in her romance with Richard Burton, and he feared that this would seriously interfere with filming.
- Shirley MacLaine agreed to the role of Irma without reading the script. According to her, she fully believed in the duo of Wilder and Jack Lemmon.
- The stage version of 'Irma la Douce' was a typical Broadway musical. Wilder abandoned the musical part of Alexandre Breffort's play, as he felt uncomfortable as the director of a film with songs and dances.
- A special street of Casanova was built specifically for the film, with three bridges and 48 buildings. It took three months and $350,000 to create the sets.
- James Caan's first appearance in a major film (an American soldier with a transistor radio in his hands).
- During filming, Jack Lemmon managed to get married in Paris to actress Felicia Farr. They lived happily together until Lemmon's death.
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