Irma la Douce (1963) on Netflix
Nestor Patou, an honest Paris policeman, is fired after a raid on a street of prostitutes. He befriends Irma la Douce and invents a wealthy English lord as her only client.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.3/1024,533 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes76%
Trailer
Plot summary
Nestor Patou is an honest policeman in Paris reassigned to Les Halles, where women work the streets around the Hotel Casanova. He raids the hotel and arrests the women, along with a man he does not recognize as his own department's chief. The force fires him for bribery and insubordination. Humiliated, he returns to Chez Moustache, a tavern that serves prostitutes and their pimps, and befriends Irma la Douce. After he saves her from Hippolyte, her abusive pimp, he moves in with her. He wants her to leave the street, so with Moustache, the tavern's proprietor, he invents Lord X, a rich English lord said to be impotent since the war, who becomes Irma's only client. Nestor works night shifts in the market to pay for it.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Irma la Douce (1963)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Irma la Douce was conceived in 1962 as a vehicle for Marilyn Monroe, reuniting her with director Billy Wilder and Jack Lemmon after Some Like It Hot. After Monroe's death, Shirley MacLaine was cast and paid $350,000 plus a percentage.
- Billy Wilder stripped all the songs from the 1956 French stage musical Irma la Douce, so the film, though based on a musical, is not itself a musical.
- Irma la Douce took over $15 million in worldwide rentals, but profit participation for Billy Wilder and the two stars left United Artists with only $440,000 profit from the theatrical run.
- Irma la Douce was the most popular film of all time in the Netherlands, with 3.6 million admissions.
