Irma la Douce
Nestor Patou, an honest policeman, has been transferred from the Bois de Boulogne to Les Halles, a more urban neighborhood in Paris.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.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.[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."[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.