Irma La Douce [Blu-ray]

Director: Billy Wilder Billy Wilder

Overview

This romantic comedy opens with a resounding warning: its chief concerns are passion, bloodshed, desire, and death. "Everything," exclaims the narrator, "that makes life worth living." Irma La Douce (Shirley MacClaine) is Paris' most prosperous prostitute. Wise, endearing, and compulsively clad in green, Irma rules the rue Casanova. She triumphantly works the most coveted corner on a street where the cops gladly look the other way and the naughty johns leave tips. Her street is a content community of live and let live and good-natured desire, an Augean stable of human understanding. However, to upright Nester Patou (Jack Lemmon), the area's new policeman, genial wrongdoing is still wrongdoing. Freshly promoted from day patrol at a children's playground, the scrupulous Nestor arrests Irma and her colleagues in a bumbling, unauthorized raid. He takes pity on Irma, but harasses the guilty johns -- including the police captain. Promptly unemployed, Nester returns to the scene of his crime, the rue, and to Irma. After physically besting her pimp, Nester unwittingly takes his position. The two fall madly in love, but Nestor quickly grows jealous of Irma's patrons. Thus, he masquerades as a wealthy English aristocrat and becomes Irma's sole customer -- only to eventually grow violently jealous of himself. Soon enough, this formally righteous cop is comically jailed for his own brutal murder! As the film's prologue promises, Irma La Douce is a celebration of life from beginning to end -- unabashedly adoring lust, emotion, fervor and, above all, foolish love. ~ Aubry Anne D'Arminio

Product Details

Release Date:	07/17/2018
UPC:	0738329224189
Original Release:	1963
Rating:	NR
Source:	Kl Studio Classics
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[DTS 5.1-Channel Surround Sound]
Language:	English
Time:	2:23:00
Sales rank:	14,575

Special Features

Audio commentary by film historian Joseph McBride, author of How Did Lubitsch Do It?; Audio commentary by film historian Kat Ellinger; Original theatrical trailer

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Shirley MacLaine	Irma La Douce
Jack Lemmon	Nestor Patou / Lord X
Lou Jacobi	Moustache
Joan Shawlee	Amazon Annie
Bruce Yarnell	Hippolyte
Herschel Bernardi	Inspector LeFevre
Hope Holiday	Lolita
Grace Lee Whitney	Kiki the Cossack
Tura Satana	Suzette Wong
Harriette Young	Mimi the MauMau
Paul Dubov	Andre
Howard McNear	Concierge
Cliff Osmond	Police Sergeant
Diki Lerner	Jojo
Herb Jones	Casablanca Charlie
Jane Earl	Zebra Twin,Zebra Twin
James Brown	Texan Customer
Bill Bixby	Tattooed Sailor
Sheryl Deauville	Carmen
Lou Krugman	Customer
John Alvin	Customer
Susan Woods	Poule With the Balcony
Billy Beck	Officer DuPont
Jack Sahakian	Jack
Don Diamond	Man With Samples
Edgar Barrier	General Lafayette
Richard Peel	Englishman
Joe Palma	Prison Guard
David Ahdar	Hood
Fred Aldrich	Actor
Al Bain	Hood
Ivan Bell	Actor
James Caan	Soldier with radio
Joe Gray	Bar Gangster
Doye O'Dell	Ticket Seller
Paul Frees	Trailer Narrator
Louis Jourdan	Narrator
Harriet Young	Mimi the Mau Mau
André Previn	Composer
Marguerite Monnot	Composer

Technical Credits

Billy Wilder

I.A.L. Diamond

Alexandre Breffort

Billy Wilder	Director,Screenwriter,Producer
I.A.L. Diamond	Screenwriter,Producer
Milt Rice	Special Effects
Edward L. Alperson	Producer
Alexandre Trauner	Producer
Gilbert D. Marchant	Sound Effects
Robert Martin	Sound Effects
Alexandre Breffort	Screenwriter
Doane Harrison	Producer