Irma la Douce (1963)

The underwhelming love story of a stripper and an ex-policeman.

Irma la Douce is a love story between a possesive policeman that looses himself and a streetwalker that lives many different lives. By a pure chance they meet, fall for each other, and show us that if you're with the one you love, you want them to be the happiest they can be... even if it means making questionable decisions along the way.

Irma la Douce (1963)

This movie is one of the most generic love stories, with a plot that predictable (from a certain point) but still manages to leave a good impression. The originality is weak, the humor even weaker... but the movie builds on a very likeable character, who steals the show and your heart.

Had it not been for Lou Jacobi's character Moustache, the movie wouldn't be half as good as it was.

A Comedy that is not funny, a Romance that is soft and dangerous, and Lou Jacobi that is my new sweetheart. 

Now let's break it down with some screenshots.

Irma la Douce works as a stripper, earning extra money by telling her customers sob stories about her life that might or might not be true. But the men are "gentlemen" and they always do pay her extra for it.

    

[Men. I am not saying you aren't allowed to have preferences, but this joke is a little outdated..]

    

And now our movie starts, and we meet the goat and MVP of the whole movie, Moustache. He is the ultimate "been there, done that, got the promotion" man. At first it was funny, then it was admirable and the more the joke went on, the more ridiculous it got.

But what do you want from a man that does this? :

    

Of course you'd expect just the best! Just the funniest! And Moustache delivered!

    

[This joke has been done over and over again, but it always catches me off guard.]

Now the following scene is what got me into the movie. I saw it on Instagram a WHILE ago, and I instantly wanted to watch it.

    

    

Back then, I did not recognize Jack Lemmon, the IG post was just a close up on Lou. But the way he delivered the line made me pretty positive the movie had to be perfect and that it would carry a big powerful message.

In other words, I thought it was a LGBT+ movie.

Well, I was wrong. But it didn't matter at all. I loved it all the same. The movie gave me a frowned upon romance with the kind of drama you would never imagine.

    

[This man is a national treasure.]

I loved Jack Lemmon a lot. His (character's) personality, and the actor grew on me. I was very excited about his facial expressions, his line delivery and his "aura" if you want to call it that.

Well, I was bitterly disappointed, because the characters he portrayed in this movie were... funny, but disturbing.

    

[That poor man did not deserve that at all!]

    

Again, his little laughter was everything. And that was when he was Nestor! But when Jack played Lord X... I could die of laughter. That character had some of the funniest lines. The way he mixed all of English references to make the point that he was a British lord and not Irma's French boyfriend... ahahah!

When a fight between Nestor and Ox breaks out (they are fighting for Irma), I could not help but to realize how... very very underwhelming the fight felt. There was no music (duh, 1963), there was no atmosphere, no yelling or cheering...

But Lou stole the show again!

    

    

[Get yourself a man that will see you for what you truly are. With binoculars.]

Another great thing about this movie was how the roles of a man and a woman worked in the world of streetwalkers and "their man".

It really was a big fat "reverse".

    

When we saw Irma's past boyfriend, I thought she was indebted to him and that she was paying off her life or something like that. But as it turns out, he was just a huge asshole. Irma was the one making and keeping all the money for herself - she was just supporting Ox, and later Nestor, whom she gave the nickname "Tiger".

The streetwalkers were actually sugar mommies and showed off their guys to the others in the Chez Moustache.

It was a very surprising twist and I loved it, I loved how funny it was.

At this point, we came to a moment where I should probably explain the Lord X thing, huh? Well, Nestor and Irma started going out... but Nestor got very jealous of Irma's customers. He devised a plan, to play a role of Lord X, who would pay Irma enough for her to stop seeing other customers, so he could be her one and only love.

However, that plan quickly got out of his hands.

Nestor became obsessed with Irma. He worked since late night to early morning, to earn the money that Lord X would give to Irma. That made him too tired to be with his girlfriend, who started suspecting that Nestor is seeing someone else and stopped loving her.

Your usual cliché follows: One morning she wakes up sooner than before, catches Nestor sneaking in. He won't tell her the truth, but confesses that he did went to see other girls. She grows cold and ends up breaking up with him... but Nestor hurts her, slaps her and their relationship ends with Irma trying to run away to be with X.

But next twist follows, and a misunderstanding that Nestor killed X arises. Irma forgives Nestor and confesses his love to him again, while Nestor is taken to the jail.

He escapes when he finds out Irma is pregnant (with X's child) and pretends to be a policeman that helps everyone looks for Nestor.

To which Irma has a typical female reaction that made me genuinely laugh:

    

Nestor then uses the power of makeover to get rid of any suspicions about himself cleverly. (Cleverly? Well, he does walk out of the water he was allegedly drowned by Nestor as if he was naturally taking walks along the bottom of the river Seine...)

    

[Aww, Moustache stepped up!]

[Double aww, Nestor wore her color]

[Another clever line.]

And three, two, one... get ready for the big finale, that got me clapping at my notebook:

    

    

Brilliant! Brilliant ending to a meh movie, that is good, but not perfect at all.

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2:17h is a damn long time. I don't consider any scene redundant, so all of 2:17h has it's place in the story. It's definitely one of the movies that deserves to be seen... However, I would not watch it for a second time.

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