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Irma la Douce

1963

Billy Wilder

Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Lou Jacobi, Bruce Yarnell ...

7.9

34,690

Comedy The film version of Irma La Douce (which means "Irma the Sweet") tells the story of Nestor Patou (Jack Lemmon), an honest policeman who finds a street full of prostitutes in a popular area in Paris. After reporting the ladies to the police inspector, who was aware of those prostitutes and lets them off by accepting bribes, he fires Nestor. Drowning his sorrows at the local bar, Chez Moustache, Nestor becomes close friends with Irma La ... [+]

	Author	Review
United States	Bosley Crowther The New York Times	"As light and satiric entertainment, it is certainly acceptable to me"	POS
United Kingdom	David Parkinson Empire	"Lemmon and Maclaine fail to reproduce the chemistry from 'The Apartment' but this slight film is not as ignorable as reputation suggests (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"	NEU
United States	Jonathan Rosenbaum Chicago Reader	"Soggy and uninspired (...) A good example of how a movie can be utterly characteristic of its maker and still fall with a resounding thud"	NEG
United Kingdom	Rod McShane Time Out	"[It] looks more than anything like a gaudy musical (...) without the songs (...) Wilder's soft-centred cynicism provides frequent enough laughs without too many longueurs."	NEU
United States	Variety	"On the plus side of the Irma ledger, there are scintillating performances by Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine (...) But 'Irma' also misses on several important counts (...) But what hurts the film the most is its length."	NEU

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