FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Billy Wilder - Irma La Douce 

Billy Wilder, who began his career with us in Berlin, was a cynic, a buffoon, a philosopher and, of course, a genius all in one. There are no less than four Wilder films among the 100 best films of all time, and even in 2020 his comedies have not aged at all. They still seem as fresh as the day they were premiered! Wilder only made Marilyn Monroe a superstar, he also made sure that Jack Lemmon became one of the great Hollywood comedians. Lemmon appeared seven times in Wilder films! Next to him in Irma La Douce: Shirley MacLaine, whose career Wilder missed the decisive turning point. Samuel Wilder, his real name, was born in Austria in 1906. He felt drawn to Berlin, where the best films in the world were shot. In 1933, however, he had to leave Berlin because Wilder was Jewish. He hardly spoke any English; "I knew 100 words when I got off the boat". But he knew a lot about characters and constructions. After all, Some-Like-It-Hot offers the best ending in film history! i think his comedies are so timeless because they refuse to be sentimental. Wilder anticipated the age of irony, indeed he may be considered the inventor of it! He always maintained a cynical view of human nature (the tragedy of Billy Wilder, who lost his family in a German concentration camp, plays a part in this, I think). Irma La Douce, his two-and-a-half hour comedy set in the red-light milieu of Paris, looks like a brightly coloured musical. It is also based on a musical, though Wilder removed the songs. Lemmon plays a gendarme who falls in love with the prostitute Irma La Douce (Shirley MacLaine). His name is Nestor Patou and he appears as a guardian of morals, only to be left humiliated and homeless. Eventually, the ex-gendarme starts working as a pimp himself. This is how Nestor falls in love with Irma. Obsessed with the whore with a heart, he creates the fictional character he calls Lord X, who will henceforth be Irma's only suitor. And what becomes of Nestor? He mutates into an irascible creep who threatens to kill anyone who gets involved with "his" Irma. Could it be that Wilder's cynical world still provokes today?