Before September is out, here are a few Billy Wilder films.

Irma La Douce (1963), directed by Billy Wilder. Wilder’s early films in the 40s and 50s deliver gritty street views and ruined lives. By the 60s, he and I.A.L. Diamond were delivering Hollywood set pieces such as Irma La Douce, a film that has a colourful set that purports to be the meat-packing and market area of Paris. Most of the action takes place on one block where the Hotel Casanova welcomes a bevy of prostitutes and their ‘clients.’ Across from the hotel is a café and bar run by Mr. Moustache (Lou Jacobi) – but that’s another story. One of the prostitutes is the titular Irma (Shirley MacLaine) who has the best spot on the street for herself and her small dog, Shorty. Irma meets Officer Nestor Patou (Jack Lemmon) on his first day patrolling this district. Officer Patou is unaware that previous patrolmen took money from the local pimps to turn a blind eye to the goings on here. In short, Officer Patou becomes civilian Patou and then the ‘Tiger,’ the pre-eminent pimp in the place after a brawl with Hippolyte (Bruce Yarnell). As things go along in screwball fashion, Nestor finds himself pretending to be Lord X from England where he has a castle of some 90 or more rooms and 400 acres. Nestor and Irma are by now living in the same small upstairs apartment with a window overlooking the busy street – “Paris never sleeps” or at least this street never sleeps in a Paris that only exists on a Hollywood backlot. The shenanigans are fun, and the jabs at bourgeois life are also fun. Just what we are to make of the women here is awkward. On the one hand they are brassy and strong, living their lives with zest and a certain independence. On the other hand, they are indentured workers who hand over their earned cash to the men who sit around drinking or playing pool. Add to this, a long-windedness in the filming and we are left with a film that has its delights, but also has its lapses and unfortunate ambiguities.

 

The Fortune Cookie (1966), directed by Billy Wilder. This is the first of ten films that would pair Jack Lemmon’s everyday guy with Walter Matthau’s more cynical fellow. It was also Lemmon’s fourth film with Wilder. As for Wilder, this is his second look at the Insurance Industry in America, after the quite different Double Indemnity (1944). Looking back at The Fortune Cookie, I find the film striking for is romantic interest in male friendship, and in this case it is not the friendship between Lemmon and Matthau, but rather between Lemmon’s Harry Hinkle and Ron Rich’s Luther ‘Boom Boom’ Jackson. Hinkle is a television cameraman who, at the beginning of the film, is shooting an NFL football game between the Browns and the Vikings, when he suddenly gets bowled over by the Brown’s star punt return specialist, Jackson. Hinkle ends up in the hospital none the worse for wear, but his brother-in-law, ‘Whiplash’ Willie Gingrich (Matthau), who happens to be a shyster lawyer, sees an opportunity to make a load of money if only Hinkle will pretend to be severely injured. Soon Hinkle’s ex-wife, Sandy (Judi West) is on the scene looking to cash in on Hinkle’s continuing affection for her. Meanwhile the bevy of high-priced lawyers for the insurance company hire a detective to spy on Hinkle hoping to discover he is faking. This is a lot of hokum, and pretty good fun. The script, as you would expect when Wilder and his long-time mate I. A. L. Diamond are responsible for it, is acerbic and often quite funny. But as I started to say above, what distinguishes this film is the relationship between Hinkle and Jackson. Jackson is a black football player who suffers remorse at having apparently injured the cameraman, and he becomes something of a houseboy to Hinkle suggesting the sadly familiar positions of black people and white people. However, as the film moves toward its finale, these two become friends and end, in the film’s final and evocative shot, as equals cavorting on the football field together. This is a powerful ending and re-envisions the usual Hollywood romantic ending in an important way.

 

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), directed by Billy Wilder. The film should have been a labour of love, Wilder having planned a story about Holmes as early as the late 1950s. And there are good things for the finding here: some quick quips, an effective mise en scene, a clever use of Sherlock’s brother Mycroft (Christopher Lee), etc. On the whole, however, this is not Wilder at his satiric best. He does, perhaps, take Holmes too seriously. Robert Stephens and Colin Blakely as the two principal characters acquit themselves adequately, and Genevieve Page as Gabrielle Valladon, Holme’s client and adversary is attractive. These characters are set to work in a less than effective plot. The bit with the Loch Ness monster is hardly mysterious or even believable, although I guess it is memorable since it is the only bit of the film that I remember from a viewing many years ago. Wilder also tries to tackle the implications of Holmes and Watson living together, erring on the side of convention. We are to rest assured that these two jolly fellows are as straight as they come! So what to conclude? This is not, by any means, in the upper tier of Sherlock Holmes films; on the other hand, it offers a pleasant enough way to spend two hours.