MovieChat Forums > Irma la Douce (1963) Discussion > Laughless film goes on for 2 hrs. 23 min...

Laughless film goes on for 2 hrs. 23 min.

posted 13 years ago by edwardholub
18 replies | jump to latest

Danny Devito once said that a good comedy should be an hour and a half long. Get in, get out, leave the audience wanting more. Shirley Maclaine signed on to do this film without reading the script thinking that Lemmon and Wilder knew what they'd be doing. She ended up being VERY disappointed with the finished product, was surprised she received an Oscar nomination and said the if she'd won, she wouldn't have cared. Shame on you Wilder. Actual nudity would have been less sleazy than all those dirty jokes and innuendoes.

There is no "off" position on the genius switch.

[–] Blueghost 13 years ago

Yeah, this film delivers a humorous attitude, but not much on actual humor.

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] princesstinymeat 13 years ago

Agree, but it's worth sitting through the entire film just for Lou Jacobi's performance. He's great.

[–] jimgo4 12 years ago

Personally... I loved it!!

[–] Hyman_Flomax 12 years ago

It's dirty-minded and dumb, but thankfully not quite as bad as Kiss Me, Stupid. Jack Lemmon doesn't even have a character written for him, he just has behavior patterns, very few of which are consistent. Wilder apparently labored under the misapprehension that he could substitute smuttiness for actual comic situations, and the results were just dead in the water.

If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive.

[–] jrhpax 10 years ago

Despite the excellent leads and the beautiful color, it's a mediocre movie with hardly any laughs, and it goes on forever. It's watchable, though.

[–] imdb2-548-335649 10 years ago

Yes, I think Wilder checkout with "The Apartment." There was nothing particularly interesting/funny about "Irma." Nonetheless, it was far ahead of "Kiss Me Stupid." THAT was rock bottom. I understand Peter Sellers was earmarked for "KMS," but he was ill or something. Maybe he could have saved that somewhat illogical and horribly cynical film. Maybe he could have covered up the plot failures with his quirkiness. No matter how you look at it, though, Ray Walton simply wasn't the man for "KMS." Believe it was the only time he played the lead in a movie.

[–] contradad-1 10 years ago

The plot is labored and humorless.
This is a good film to see if you only have 2 hrs 23 minutes to live because the time will feel like an eternity

[–] Cookie.L.A. (2117) 7 years ago

<< This is a good film to see if you only have 2 hrs 23 minutes to live because the time will feel like an eternity >>

bwa ha ha ha ha ! ! !

Okay...this comment is legend... !
.

[–] spookyrat1 10 years ago

Danny Devito once said that a good comedy should be an hour and a half long. Get in, get out, leave the audience wanting more.

I agree with Danny The idea behind this film was good, but the execution...sacré bleu! Almost two and a half hours! Yawn!

[–] rp69 9 years ago

Spookyrat!!! What's up?

I caught this movie the other day on TCM. It started out looking like a fun movie. After an hour and a half I realized I wasn't laughing much. Then I realized it still had a whole hour to go. I watched up to where he takes odd jobs at the meat market in the middle of the night. I turned the channel. It was WAAAYY too long.

I caught another movie on TCM's Summer of Darkness hosted by Eddie Muller. It was really good, but I can't remember the name. A dance hall girl accidentally shoots a slimy detective in her apartment. She goes on the run with a naive suitor.
It was a good straight forward On The Run noir.

[–] highpriestess32 9 years ago

Sadly, I am in complete agreement with you. It's OK for background noise and since I often like to have something on at night to drift off to on low volume (on the iPad), the longevity of it is an advantage but only to get me off to sleep! I am yet to see it from start to finish but am playing it now as I type. From the bits I have seen on waking up tossing and turning I am yet to have mustered up even a sympathetic giggle.

For its time it was incredibly sleazy and without humour it fails on several levels. It all seems a bit contrived. I'm an hour in and have still not found anything remotely comedic (and I have seen the end just not the middle). But it is hard to find a movie that is consistent in terms of volume to fall asleep to. A lot of modern films keep going up and down in volume and can therefore disrupt sleep as opposed to coax it.

"These days you have to boil someone before you can sleep with them"

[–] mdonln 9 years ago

I guess that's what you call an updated, modern version of the bedtime story. I, too, often fall asleep while watching a movie but it's interesting to hear that you actually choose them for that purpose.

In regards to the movie, it's awful and it's way too long. I had to check the info to see if it was really classified as a comedy. I knew it wasn't a drama but I didn't know what to make of a comedy with no laughs.

Finally toward the end of the movie I did laugh out loud. It was the scene where Nestor kills Lord X. I'm not really sure why I found it so funny, probably because Hippolyte was listening and I knew where it was going from there but I really laughed. I hoped it would be funny from there but that didn't happen.

[–] highpriestess32 9 years ago

Well any film that is fairly consistent with sound and over the 2 hour mark is a good choice to induce sleep on low volume. Before finding this one I used to play The Talented Mr Ripley but that has some noisey parts (and actually is a brilliant film!). Either that or The French Lieutenant's Woman on DVD because it plays all night on the loop. However that too has some loud parts that can rouse me if I am not deeply asleep. I'm always looking out for a long film that doesn't have spurts of loud music of fight scenes (where the volume always goes way up!).

I did watch this film through when I posted here and like you, I concluded it was a comedy with no laughs.

"These days you have to boil someone before you can sleep with them"

[–] Grethiwha 9 years ago

I've seen 17 Billy Wilder movies before this one, all of them good. Including the underrated "Kiss Me Stupid". This one, though... It's so nonsensical, so full of non-sequiturs. I suppose that's meant to contribute to the comedy, but the humour falls flat for me, it feels so laboured, that really it just contributes to making the story seem frustrating and insincere. I wanted to like it. The Apartment is one of my favourite movies. I love Wilder of course, MacLaine is great... And I love Jack Lemmon, but here his 'Lord X' was cringingly obnoxious to watch.

I remember watching an interview with director Andrzej Zulawski that rang false to me, where he said The Apartment has aged poorly – it was remarkable at the time of its release for pushing boundaries regarding sexuality, but today it no longer seems remarkable (his point being to say that he never specifically tries to push boundaries in his films, using The Apartment as an example why not). But the Apartment is remarkable still today for so many other reasons! – it need not be any more explicit or unsubtle. However, I may agree with the same statement applied to Irma la Douce, because it feels almost like its main accomplishment was just further pushing the boundaries of the era.

I will say that the movie did keep my attention. It wasn't terrible. First hour made me smile. But it was quite disappointing, since Wilder never let me down in the past, and The Apartment (to which this is, I guess, a 'spiritual successor') is a straight-up 10/10 for me. I did laugh out loud though towards the end at the line "Smoothest delivery I ever had!" 

--- grethiwha -------- My Favourite Films:
http://www.imdb.com/list/Bw65XZIpkH8/