Nestor Patou, an honest policeman, has been transferred from the Bois de Boulogne to Les Halles, a more urban neighborhood in Paris. He finds a street full of prostitutes working at the Hotel Casanova and raids the place. The inspector fires Nestor, who is mistakenly framed for bribery.
Kicked off the force and humiliated, Nestor finds himself drawn to the very neighborhood that ended his career with the Paris police—returning to Chez Moustache, a popular tavern for prostitutes and pimps. Down on his luck, Nestor befriends Irma la Douce, a popular prostitute. He reluctantly accepts, as a confidant, the proprietor of Chez Moustache, a man known only as Moustache. In a running joke, Moustache tells of a storied prior life, claiming to have been, among other things, an attorney, a colonel in the Foreign Legion, and a doctor who worked with Albert Schweitzer in Africa, ending with the repeated line, "but that's another story". After saving Irma from her abusive pimp, Hippolyte, Nestor moves in with her, and unwittingly becomes a new one.
Nestor becomes infatuated and devises a plan to derail Irma's life as a prostitute. With the help of Moustache, Nestor disguises himself as Lord X, a wealthy English lord, who becomes Irma's exclusive client. Lord X has supposedly been rendered impotent by his service in World War II but is eager to support her in exchange for two visits each week. To finance Lord X's expensive habit, Nestor takes graveyard shifts in the marketplace; missing all night and tired all day, Irma suspects an affair.
Irma seduces Lord X and persuades him to take her to England. At that point, Nestor decides to end the charade and kill off his alter ego. Unaware he is being tailed by Hippolyte, he tosses his disguise into the Seine. Seeing Lord X's clothes floating in the water, Hippolyte concludes Nestor killed him.
Arrested and sent to prison, Nestor escapes when he discovers that Irma is pregnant. He narrowly avoids being recaptured when the police search for him at the apartment; donning his old uniform, Nestor blends in with the other police and eludes capture.
With the help of Hippolyte, Nestor arranges for the police to search for him along the Seine, from which he emerges dressed as Lord X. Exonerated of the murder, Nestor and Irma agree to get married. At the church, Irma goes into labor and has their baby. Moustache identifies the real Lord X as a guest. As Lord X leaves, a clearly baffled Moustache looks at the audience.
The film was successful, grossing $25,246,588 in the United States and Canada[2] on a budget of $5 million.[1] It was the fifth highest-grossing film of 1963, earning an estimated $12 million in rentals in the United States and Canada.[7]Irma la Douce earned over $15 million in worldwide rentals, but because of profit participation for Wilder and the two stars, United Artists only made a profit of $440,000 during the film's theatrical run.[6] It was the most popular film of all time in the Netherlands with admissions of 3.6 million.[8]
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called it "a brisk and bubbly film" with Lemmon "little short of brilliant" and MacLaine having "a wonderously casual and candid air that sweeps indignation before it and leaves one sweetly enamoured of her."[9]Variety praised the "scintillating performances" by Lemmon and MacLaine but thought that the film "lacks the originality of some of Wilder's recent efforts" and that the 147-minute running time was "an awfully long haul for a frivolous farce."[10] Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times reported that "I found it a brilliant, though outrageously outspoken comedy."[11]Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post panned the film as "overblown and overlong, two hours and three quarters tediously spent on a single joke."[12]The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote, "Though the film stretches for two and a third hours, and rarely ventures away from the two principals and the studio-built Rue Casanova, the humour and spontaneity endure surprisingly well ... most credit goes to Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon for yet another tour de force of comedy playing."[13] The film has a rating of 76% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 21 reviews.[14]
The film was remade in Egypt as Khamsa Bab in 1983
Others
In 1968, the Egyptian film Afrit Mirati (My Wife's Goblin) starring Salah Zulfikar and Shadia, contained a soundtrack titled Irma la Douce performed by Shadia. The Egyptian film Khamsa Bab (Door Five) was based on the story in Irma la Douce, with Nadia El Guindy playing the part of Tragy, the Egyptian Irma character.[23]
