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Irma La Douce

A young Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine play a mismatched couple in this cutesy 1963 romantic comedy.

In Paris, an ex-cop falls in love with a prostitute, and tries to get her out of that life by paying for all of her time. Not so easy...
Irma La Douce is definitely worth a rental, it has lots of funny moments and I wouldn't be surprised if they did a modern remake. You can catch it on the Starz channel throughout the month of August.




For fans of... Pretty Woman and The Girlfriend Experience.

8 comments:

HouariB said...

Actually It was a remake of an old musical comedy created on 1956.
this is a excerpt of the comedy with new actors
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/k2gywZL3rqaEEeTsOL

I've never seen the movie. Could you tell us if you see something in common with the movie, I know it's in french :))

By the way the most famous french prostitute is Roxanne , thanks to Police )

Karen said...

Houari, I watched that video and the movie isn't a musical. And unfortunately there aren't any accordion scenes (excluding the very beginning, I missed that part). If I were to do a modern remake I'd probably cast Rachel McAdams as Irma and Zach Braff as her love interest. That would be so funny and cute!

Sergio said...

Irma is not my all time favorite Billy Wilder films but I've seen it several times and it definitely has more than its fair share of terrific moments with some absoultely wonderful art direction of Paris totally recreated on a Hollywood sound stage. But a remake wouldn't work especially with this suggestions you've made because the reason why the film works is because the characters are older. MacLaine and Lemmon in the film play people who have lived a life, been "around the block" as it were so there's an undercurrent of poignancy throughout the film.

Ihe film is based on a Broadway musical Irma la Douce with the same storyline but Wilder threw out all the music and rewrote the story. Originally Marilyn Monroe was going to play Irma reteaming her with her co-star Lemmon from Wilder's Some Like It Hot but she died before shooting began so Maclaine, who co-starred with Lemmon in Wilder's The Apartment (a film you should really check out)replaced her

Karen said...

@Sergio
The thing about prostitution is that it ages women quickly (especially emotionally). So five years in the industry they've been "around the block." A lot of things can happen to them in a year or even a couple months. Someone in their late 20s/early 30s would be experienced and by then have acquired that "hardened" view one has to obtain in order to live that kind of lifestyle. So Rachel McAdams could definitely work as Irma. And Zach Braff's character in Garden State was able to convey a man with a great amount of inner turmoil for his age. They'd make a nice combo!

I haven't seen The Apartment yet but I'll put it on my list!

Sergio said...

True, though I still don't see McAdams in the role. Not hard enough by a long shot.

But why do a remake in the first place? They never top the original in the first place. I've always thought if you have to do remakes then do remakes of films that had interesting premises or storylines that were badly excecuted. I've got one I would LOVE to make a remake one. I might even try a shot of writing a script for it. What about you?

Karen said...

Good premise, bad adaptation... I'd remake Surrogates. It's sci-fi.

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