Shirley MacLaine Movies
A dancer, singer, highly regarded actress and metaphysical time traveler, Shirley MacLaine is certainly among Hollywood's most unique stars. Born Shirley MacLane Beaty on April 24, 1934 in Richmond, Virginia, MacLaine was the daughter of drama coach and former actress Kathlyn MacLean Beaty and Ira O. Beaty, a professor of psychology and philosophy. Her younger brother, Warren Beatty, also grew up to be an important Hollywood figure as an actor/director/ producer and screenwriter. MacLaine's mother, who gave up her own dreams of stardom for her young family, greatly motivated her daughter to become an actress and dancer. MacLaine took dance lessons from age two, first performed publicly at age four, and at 16 went to New York, making her Broadway debut as a chorus girl in Me and Juliet (1953). When not scrambling for theatrical work, MacLaine worked as a model.Interestingly, MacLaine's big break was the result of another actress's bad luck. In 1954, MacLaine was understudying Broadway actress Carol Haney The Pajama Game when Haney fractured her ankle. MacLaine replaced her and was spotted and offered a movie contract by producer Hal Wallis. With her auburn hair cut impishly short, the young actress made her film debut in Hitchock's black comedy The Trouble With Harry (1955). Later that year, she co-starred opposite Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in the comedy Artists and Models. In her next feature, Around the World in 80 Days (1956), she appeared as an Indian princess.
MacLaine earned her first Oscar nomination for her portrayal of a pathetic tart who shocks a conservative town by showing up on the arm of young war hero Frank Sinatra in Some Came Running (1959). She then got the opportunity to show off her long legs and dancing talents in Can-Can (1960). Prior to that, she appeared with Rat Packers Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford in Oceans Eleven (1960). MacLaine, the only female member of the famed group, would later recount her experiences with them in her seventh book My Lucky Stars. In 1960, she won her second Oscar nomination for Billy Wilder's comedy/drama The Apartment, and a third nomination for Irma La Douce (1963). MacLaine's career was in high gear during the '60s, with her appearing in everything from dramas to madcap comedies to musicals such as What a Way to Go! (1964) and Bob Fosse's Sweet Charity! (1969). In addition to her screen work, she actively participated in Robert Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign and served as a Democratic Convention delegate. She was similarly involved in George McGovern's 1972 campaign.
Bored by sitting around on movie sets all day awaiting her scenes, MacLaine started writing down her thoughts and was thus inspired to add writing to her list of talents. She published her first book, Don't Fall Off the Mountain in 1970. She next tried her hand at series television in 1971, starring in the comedy Shirley's World (1971-72) as a globe-trotting photographer. The role reflected her real-life reputation as a world traveler, and these experiences resulted in her second book Don't Fall Off the Mountain and the documentary The Other Half of the Sky -- A China Memoir (1975) which she scripted, produced and co-directed with Claudia Weill. MacLaine returned to Broadway in 1976 with a spectacular one-woman show A Gypsy in My Soul, and the following year entered a new phase in her career playing a middle-aged former ballerina who regrets leaving dance to live a middle-class life in The Turning Point. MacLaine was memorable starring as a lonely political wife opposite Peter Sellers' simple-minded gardener in Being There (1979), but did not again attract too much attention until she played the over-protective, eccentric widow Aurora Greenway in James L. Brooks' Terms of Endearment (1983), a role that finally won MacLaine an Academy Award. That same year, she published the candid Out on a Limb, bravely risking public ridicule by describing her experiences and theories concerning out-of-body travel and reincarnation.
MacLaine's film appearances were sporadic through the mid '80s, although she did appear in a few television specials. In 1988, she came back strong with three great roles in Madame Sousatzka (1988), Steel Magnolias (1989) and particularly Postcards from the Edge (1990), in which she played a fading star clinging to her own career while helping her daughter Meryl Streep, a drug addicted, self-destructive actress. Through the '90s, MacLaine specialized in playing rather crusty and strong-willed eccentrics, such as her title character in the 1994 comedy Guarding Tess. In 1997, MacLaine stole scenes as a wise grande dame who helps pregnant, homeless Ricki Lake in Mrs. Winterbourne, and the same year revived Aurora Greenway in The Evening Star, the critically maligned sequel to Terms of Endearment.
MacLaine's onscreen performances were few and far between in the first half of the next decade, but in 2005 she returned in relatively full force, appearing in three features. She took on a pair of grandmother roles in the comedy-dramas In Her Shoes and Rumor Has It..., and was a perfect fit for the part of Endora in the bigscreen take on the classic sitcom Bewitched.
For a long time, MacLaine did seminars on her books, but in the mid '90s stopped giving talks, claiming she did not want "to be anyone's guru." She does, however, continue writing and remains a popular writer. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1955
Bearing very little relation to the 1937 Paramount musical of the same name, Artists and Models is a lavish, girl-filled vehicle for the popular team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Martin plays Rick Todd, a comic-book artist who is under fire from his publisher (Eddie Mayehoff), who complains that Rick's work isn't gory enough. Lewis plays Eugene Fullstack, Rick's roommate, who while asleep dreams up elaborate comic-book plots and garishly costumed superheroes. Eugene's nightmares help Rick become a success; meanwhile, our two heroes romance their luscious neighbors, artist Dorothy Malone and rambunctious model Shirley MacLaine (who during one song wrestles Eugene to the floor and sits on his chest!) Eugene's overworked imagination somehow attracts the attention of a group of Russian spies, who attempt to abduct Eugene during the annual Artists and Models Ball. Director Frank Tashlin uses Artists and Models as an excuse for some of the wildest sight-gags seen in a mid-1950s film. At one point, the director contrives to stuff a gag in Shirley MacLaine's mouth. Tashlin also exhibits his ongoing fascination with female breasts and legs by giving ample screen time to the natural attributes of co-stars Anita Ekberg and Eva Gabor. One of the best of the Martin/Lewis efforts, Artists and Models suffers only from being about 20 minutes too long. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, (more)
The trouble with Harry is that he's dead. The scene is a autumnal Vermont village, where a pre-Leave It to Beaver Jerry Mathers stumbles upon Harry's corpse in the woods. Mathers alerts his mother Shirley MacLaine (making her film debut), who recognizes Harry as her ex-husband. Later on, retired sea captain Edmund Gwenn likewise comes across the moribund Harry. Both MacLaine and Gwenn have reason to believe that they're responsible for Harry's demise; MacLaine thinks that she killed Harry by clobbering him with a bottle, while Gwenn is certain that he shot the poor fellow while hunting. As the day draws to a close, seemingly every person in town is convinced that he or she has had some hand in Harry's death, thus they conspire to hide the body from the authorities. Visiting artist John Forsythe, dumbfounded at the calm, collected reactions of the villagers regarding Harry (whose ubiquitous body pops up at the most inopportune moments), solves the "mystery." Though not his most successful film, The Trouble with Harry was one of director Alfred Hitchcock's favorites. The story's whimsical black-comedy elements are perfectly complemented by Bernard Herrmann's playful music score. Best bit: Mildred Natwick, coming upon Gwenn as the latter is strenuously dragging away Harry's corpse, asking offhandedly "What seems to be the trouble, Captain?" The Trouble With Harry was adapted by John Michael Hayes from the novel by John Trevor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edmund Gwenn, John Forsythe, (more)
Razzle-dazzle showman Michael Todd hocked everything he had to make this spectacular presentation of Jules Verne's 1872 novel Around the World in 80 Days, the second film to be lensed in the wide-screen Todd-AO production. Nearly as fascinating as the finished product are the many in-production anecdotes concerning Todd's efforts to pull the wool over the eyes of local authorities in order to cadge the film's round-the-world location shots--not to mention the wheeling and dealing to convince over forty top celebrities to appear in cameo roles. David Niven heads the huge cast as ultra-precise, supremely punctual Phileas Fogg, who places a 20,000-pound wager with several fellow members of London Reform Club, insisting that he can go around the world in eighty days (this, remember, is 1872). Together with his resourceful valet Passepartout (Cantinflas), Fogg sets out on his world-girdling journey from Paris via balloon. Meanwhile, suspicion grows that Fogg has stolen his 20,000 pounds from Bank of England. Diligent Inspector Fix (Robert Newton) is sent out by the bank's president (Robert Morley) to bring Fogg to justice. Hopscotching around the globe, Fogg pauses in Spain, where Passepartout engages in a comic bullfight (a specialty of Cantinflas). In India, Fogg and Passepartout rescue young widow Princess Aouda (Shirley MacLaine, in her third film) from being forced into committing suicide so that she may join her late husband. The threesome visit Hong Kong, Japan, San Francisco, and the Wild West. Only hours short of winning his wager, Fogg is arrested by the diligent Inspector Fixx. Though exonerated of the bank robbery charges, he has lost everything--except the love of the winsome Aouda. But salvation is at hand when Passepartout discovers that, by crossing the International Date Line, there's still time to reach the Reform Club. Will they make it? See for yourself. Among the film's 46 guest stars, the most memorable include Marlene Dietrich, Charles Boyer, Jose Greco, Frank Sinatra, Peter Lorre, Red Skelton, Buster Keaton, John Mills, and Beatrice Lillie. All were paid in barter--Ronald Colman did his brief bit for a new car. Newscaster Edward R. Murrow provides opening narration, and there's a tantalizing clip from Georges Méliès' A Trip to the Moon (1902). Offering a little something for everyone, Around the World in 80 Days is nothing less than an extravaganza, and it won 5 Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Cinematography. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Niven, Cantinflas, (more)
Thornton Wilder's 1938 stage play The Merchant of Yonkers was based on an old British stage farce by John Oxenford (which in turn served as the basis of an Austrian farce by Johann Nestroy). Merchant of Yonkers was a bomb, but Wilder was quite fond of the piece, so he revised it as the considerably more successful The Matchmaker in 1955. The 1958 film version stars Shirley Booth as 19th-century matchmaker Dolly Gallagher Levi (a character not found in the Oxenford or Nestroy versions; Wilder "borrowed" Dolly from Moliere's The Miser). Dolly is currently trying to arrange a marriage between Yonkers dry-goods merchant Horace Vandergelder (Paul Ford) and hatmaker Irene Molloy (Shirley MacLaine)-though she secretly harbors a desire to march Horace to the altar herself. Meanwhile, Vandergelder's chief clerk Cornelius (Anthony Perkins), celebrating a recent promotion, decides to head to New York for a "good time". Though he's supposed to be minding the store, Cornelius abandons the shop, with fellow-clerk Barnaby (Robert Morse, repeating his stage role) in tow. Inevitably, Cornelius and Barnaby wind up escorting Irene Molloy and her co-worker Minnie Fay (Perry Wilson) to a fancy restaurant, where Horace and Dolly are also dining. As the many plot twists wend their way through the proceedings, the camera occasionally pauses to allow the character to speak directly to the audience, expressing their innermost desires and philosophies; this purely theatrical device works quite well on screen, especially the monologue about honesty delivered by handyman Malachi Stack (played with alcoholic whimsy by Wallace Ford). While the name "Malachi Stack"may not be familiar to you, the other characters-and the basic plot-will be instantly recognizable to fans of Hello Dolly, the 1964 musical comedy version of The Matchmaker. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shirley Booth, Anthony Perkins, (more)
- 1958
The Sheepman was touted as a comedy by some of MGM's publicity people. It really isn't, but this western does have its lighthearted moments. Glenn Ford stars as a hard-bitten sheep farmer, running up against the opposition of cattle ranchers. Shirley MacLaine is a no-nonsense frontier girl who becomes the bone of contention between Ford and cattle baron Leslie Nielsen. Ford is able to get a leg-up in the community by humiliating Nielsen's top gun (Mickey Shaughnessy) in public. The range war comes to an end when Ford and Nielsen go one-to-one. Because The Sheepman didn't do well in its initial engagements, MGM reissued the picture under the more aggressive title The Stranger With a Gun. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Glenn Ford, Shirley MacLaine, (more)
- 1958
Anthony Quinn and Shirley Booth play a married couple who cling and claw like cats in a bathtub in this sudsy melodrama set in steamy New Orleans. Booth does most of the clinging as a neglected wife struggling to reassemble her battered marriage to Quinn who plays a faithless husband in love with tender young Valerie Allen, something Booth tries her best to ignore. Unfortunately, despite her efforts, her children are not spared the spousal turmoil. Matters are not helped when Earl Holliman, the eldest son, decides to leave his father's employment business and start his own. The youngest son Clint Kimbrough finds it all terribly upsetting. Meanwhile his sister Shirley MacLaine becomes deeply depressed after her father threatens her boyfriend in an effort to get him to marry her. Now MacLaine is left with no one. The fur really begins to fly when Quinn, tired of the tumult, decides to chuck the whole family and move to Florida with Allen. Tragedy ensues for the wicked duo. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shirley Booth, Anthony Quinn, (more)
After the success of From Here to Eternity, pairing Frank Sinatra with another James Jones novel made perfect sense. Set in the aftermath of World War II, the film stars Sinatra as a recently discharged soldier whose promising writing career has derailed. After a drunken card game, Sinatra finds himself aboard a bus for his Indiana hometown of Parktown, with recent acquaintance Shirley MacLaine in tow. An unrefined good-time girl, MacLaine allows her affections to settle on the hard-drinking Sinatra, who wants little to do with her as he reluctantly sets about re-establishing ties he thought to have abandoned over a decade before. These include a brother (Arthur Kennedy) unable to discard his salesman's persona, his disapproving wife (Leora Dana), and their teenage daughter (Betty Lei Keim). Meanwhile, Sinatra makes a variety of new acquaintances both respectable and otherwise, including a local gambler (Dean Martin) and a creative writing instructor (Martha Hyer) smitten with his writing and possibly with him. Shaking up the complacency of his small hometown more by accident than design, Sinatra forces all those around him to reevaluate their behavior. After a variety of smaller parts, this is the role that cemented MacLaine's name, earning her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. ~ Keith Phipps, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, (more)
- 1959
Playwright James Lee adapted his off-Broadway play for the screen in this high-strung adaptation, directed by Joseph Anthony. In this simplistic, backroom show-business-success saga, Anthony Franciosa plays Sam, a struggling young actor who will forsake his family and take any type of menial job in order to become a Broadway star. Dean Martin is on hand as Maury, an aspiring director also trying to claw his way up the ladder of success. When Maury gets his big break, Sam wants a part in his show, but when Maury, who is unwilling to cast Sam in the production, turns down Sam's request, Sam seduces and marries Maury's girlfriend (Shirley MacLaine). In spite of everything, Maury wants his girl back, and Sam agrees to a divorce on the stipulation that Maury cast him as the star in his next show. Once again, Maury reneges and, before Sam can exact his revenge, Uncle Sam comes to the rescue and he is drafted into the army. While Sam is in the army, the era of the communist witch hunts are in full flower, and since Sam and Maury were both members of the Communist Party, upon Sam's return home he discovers that they both are blacklisted. Their passion for success still burning bright, they decide to collaborate and put together an independent production that will either mark their complete success or their complete failure. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dean Martin, Anthony Franciosa, (more)
- 1959
Viewers know they're in a 1959 comedy film early in the proceedings of Ask Any Girl, when secretary Shirley MacLaine is advised by her new supervisor Jim Backus to wear a sweater "a size too small." But she is a good girl: like Doris Day, she won't offer any carnal favors unless a wedding ring is part of the bargain. She targets irresponsible CEO Gig Young for matrimony, asking Young's sober-sided older brother David Niven to help her out. The highlight of Ask Any Girl is Shirley MacLaine's extended drunk scene in the club car of a commuter train. The film was based on a satirical novel by Winifred Wolfe. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Niven, Shirley MacLaine, (more)
During a Los Angeles Christmas, a group of 82nd Airborne vets assembles under the leadership of gamblin' man Danny Ocean (Frank Sinatra) to rip off four Las Vegas casinos just after the stroke of midnight on New Year's Day. Playboy Jimmy Foster (Peter Lawford) joins in the scheme because he's sick of needing his oft-married mother's money, especially now that she's about to wed Duke Santos (Cesar Romero), a self-made man with all sorts of underworld ties. After he receives the news that he could die at any time, newly released convict Anthony Bergdorf (Richard Conte) reluctantly agrees to participate so he can leave some money to his estranged wife and young son. Ocean's own wife, Beatrice (Angie Dickinson), doesn't think much of her husband's promise of a big score to come, but her quiet protests don't dissuade him. With Las Vegas garbage man and fellow vet Josh Howard (Sammy Davis Jr.) and several casino employees among their number, the titular band of thieves have just a few days to get ready for their caper. When Duke Santos, Jimmy's mother, and one of Ocean's discarded paramours all show up in Sin City at the same time as the veterans, the crew's perfect plans face some serious hurdles. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, (more)
Widely regarded as a comedy in 1960, The Apartment seems more melancholy with each passing year. Jack Lemmon plays C.C. Baxter, a go-getting office worker who loans his tiny apartment to his philandering superiors for their romantic trysts. He runs into trouble when he finds himself sharing a girlfriend (Shirley MacLaine) with his callous boss (Fred MacMurray). Director/co-writer Billy Wilder claimed that the idea for The Apartment stemmed from a short scene in the 1945 romantic drama Brief Encounter in which the illicit lovers (Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson) arrange a rendezvous in a third person's apartment. Wilder was intrigued about what sort of person would willingly vacate his residence to allow virtual strangers a playing field for hanky panky. His answer to that question wound up winning 6 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. The Apartment was adapted by Neil Simon and Burt Bacharach into the 1969 Broadway musical Promises, Promises. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, (more)
Cole Porter's Gay Paree musical about the introduction in Montmartre in 1896 of the notorious Can-Can dance, is brought to the screen, filtered through a Rat Pack sensibility. Shirley MacLaine stars as Simone Pistache, the perky and vivacious owner of a Parisian cafe, who, aided by her swingin' boyfriend Francois Dumais (Frank Sinatra), is trying to keep her establishment from being closed down by the Paris authorities because of Simone's insistence on treating her patrons to the Can-Can, the salacious dance outlawed by French law. Maurice Chevalier is a kindly French judge who graciously looked the other way, but another hard-nosed judge, Philippe Forrestier (Louis Jordan), turns up the heat on Simone to close her cafe. That is, until Simone turns up the heat on him, and Phillippe falls hard for Simone. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine, (more)
- 1961
Released in Great Britain as The Spinster, this romantic drama is based on a novel by Sylvia Ashton-Warner. Shirley MacLaine plays Anna Vorontosov, a Pennsylvania-born schoolteacher who has taken a job in rural New Zealand. The permissive habits of the Maori families whose children she teaches continually shock her. Though she is emotionally repressed, Anna is a remarkable teacher who brings innovative classroom methods to her job. Her racially mixed classes are thriving. W.W.J. Abercrombie (Jack Hawkins) is a school administrator who is won over by her methods. Paul Lathrope (Laurence Harvey) is a teacher who longs to be a singer but is lonely and irresponsible. The icy Anna, frightened of men, rebuffs their advances. Her chief aide, Whareparita (Nobu McCarthy), a 15-year-old Maori, becomes pregnant. The Maoris accept this as a natural development. But her baby dies during childbirth. Soon after, Paul crashes his motorcycle and dies. When Anna learns that Paul was the baby's father, she wonders whether the crash was an accident or a suicide, and she blames her rejection of Paul for the pregnancy. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shirley MacLaine, Laurence Harvey, (more)
Tony Ryder (Dean Martin) thinks that Katie Robbins (Shirley MacLaine) was the mistress of a recently deceased millionaire. On this fragile plot peg hangs the rest of All in a Night's Work. The millionaire died with a smile on his face, and Tony, who stands to inherit the dead man's publishing business, suspects that Katie, who has been left a fortune, administered the "favors" that pushed the old coot into the great beyond. Katie, wholly innocent, resents Tony's implications and gives him the brush-off. All turns out for the good when Tony realizes that he loves Katie for herself and not for her legacy. It took three writers (five, if you count the authors of the play upon which this film is based) to cook up the tickle-and-tease souffle that we've come to know as All in a Night's Work. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine, (more)
Based on the 1934 play by Lillian Hellman, The Children's Hour is set at an exclusive girl's school managed by best friends Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine. When student Karen Balkin is punished for one of her many misdeeds, the mean-spirited youngster rushes to her wealthy aunt Fay Bainter, and, randomly choosing a phrase she has undoubtedly read in some magazine, accuses Hepburn and MacLaine of having an "unnatural relationship." As Balkin's lies grow in viciousness, the student's parents withdraw their children from the school. Hepburn and MacLaine sue Bainter for libel, only to lose their case when MacLaine's aunt Miriam Hopkins refuses to testify as a character witness. The trial takes its toll on the relationship between Hepburn and her boyfriend James Garner. When Bainter discovers that her niece has been lying, she tries to make amends, but it is too late. Director William Wyler had also helmed the first film version of Children's Hour, 1936's These Three, which due to censorship restrictions of the time did without the lesbian angle (the little girl's accusations involved a supposed romantic triangle between the two ladies and a male friend). Miriam Hopkins, who plays a supporting role in The Children's Hour, originally essayed the Shirley MacLaine role in These Three. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, (more)
In this romantic comedy, a popular actress disguises herself as a Japanese geisha to land a part in a film directed by her husband. Shirley MacLaine stars as Lucy Dell, a comic actress married to equally successful director Paul Robaix (Yves Montand). Though Paul has found success creating comic vehicles for Lucy, he wants to expand his range by making a lavish adaptation of Madame Butterfly on location in Japan, using a local actress as the star. Lucy feels she can play the part just as well as any Japanese woman, and, with the help of the film's producer (Edward G. Robinson), she hatches a plot to prove it. She poses as Yoko Mori, an innocent young geisha on her way to joining a convent, and her husband is immediately determined to cast her. Of course, the masquerade proves more difficult than imagined, and things become especially complicated when Lucy's Hollywood playboy co-star (Robert Cummings) falls in love with her demure Yoko persona. Opting for mild, character-driven humor over farce, My Geisha provides a few knowing jibes at Hollywood and comfortable performances from MacLaine and Montand, but the film's treatment of Japanese culture will likely seem dated to modern audiences. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shirley MacLaine, Yves Montand, (more)
- 1962
Based on the two-character play by William Gibson, Two for the Seesaw was unnecessarily expanded for the film version. Robert Mitchum plays an Omaha businessman, newly arrived in New York. Though unhappily married, Mitchum is averse to asking for a divorce. This state of affairs gets dicey when Mitchum falls in love with Bronx-born professional dancer Shirley MacLaine. Once he does get a divorce, Mitchum, nervous about making any new commitments, fails to tell MacLaine. Though they remain fond of one another, Mitchum and MacLaine finally realize that any future relationship will do more harm than good for both of them. The original Broadway production of Two for the Seesaw starred Henry Fonda and Anne Bancroft; by the time the film was made, Fonda was feuding with playwright Gibson and Bancroft was filming The Miracle Worker, so Mitchum and MacLaine were substituted. She is ideally suited to her role, but he seems ill at ease playing an indecisive jerk. Two for the Seesaw is at its best when concentrating on the minimalist text of the original play; the inclusion of secondary characters and location photography adds little to the project. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Mitchum, Shirley MacLaine, (more)
This romantic comedy opens with a resounding warning: its chief concerns are passion, bloodshed, desire, and death. "Everything," exclaims the narrator, "that makes life worth living." Irma La Douce (Shirley MacClaine) is Paris' most prosperous prostitute. Wise, endearing, and compulsively clad in green, Irma rules the rue Casanova. She triumphantly works the most coveted corner on a street where the cops gladly look the other way and the naughty johns leave tips. Her street is a content community of live and let live and good-natured desire, an Augean stable of human understanding. However, to upright Nester Patou (Jack Lemmon), the area's new policeman, genial wrongdoing is still wrongdoing. Freshly promoted from day patrol at a children's playground, the scrupulous Nestor arrests Irma and her colleagues in a bumbling, unauthorized raid. He takes pity on Irma, but harasses the guilty johns -- including the police captain. Promptly unemployed, Nester returns to the scene of his crime, the rue, and to Irma. After physically besting her pimp, Nester unwittingly takes his position. The two fall madly in love, but Nestor quickly grows jealous of Irma's patrons. Thus, he masquerades as a wealthy English aristocrat and becomes Irma's sole customer -- only to eventually grow violently jealous of himself. Soon enough, this formally righteous cop is comically jailed for his own brutal murder! As the film's prologue promises, Irma La Douce is a celebration of life from beginning to end -- unabashedly adoring lust, emotion, fervor and, above all, foolish love. ~ Aubry Anne D'Arminio, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, (more)
In this drama, from director Anthony Asquith, the lives and stories of three different people are linked together by their possession of an unusual car, a yellow Rolls Royce Phantom II. Lord Frinton (Rex Harrison) is a diplomat who purchases the exquisite auto as a gift for his wife (Jeanne Moreau). After Frinton's horse wins the Royal Gold Cup, Lady Frinton incurs the Lord's wrath when she is caught in the back seat of the Rolls with his underling John Fane (Edmund Purdom). In the 1930s, the car is bought by Italian gangster Paolo Maltese (George C. Scott), who is carrying on with the hatcheck girl Mae Jenkins (Shirley MacLaine). The two take a tour of Italy and see all the historic sights, but Mae is less than impressed. While Paolo is in the United States on one of his frequent hit-man assignments, Mae and a street photographer try out the back seat for comfort and carnal pleasure. Art Carney plays Paolo's associate Joey. In the final episode, Gerda Millett (Ingrid Bergman) is the married American woman who buys the car in 1942. With Hitler attacking Yugoslavia the brave and brazen beauty helps fight the Nazis by smuggling Davich (Omar Shariff) across the border, and this duo also find themselves in the back seat for a roll in the Rolls. Davich shows his gratitude by shipping the car along with Gerda back to the United States. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rex Harrison, Jeanne Moreau, (more)
This lavishly produced, big-budget comedy (it cost $20 million in 1964 dollars) stars Shirley MacLaine as Louisa, a widow who is worth $200 million dollars. However, she's convinced that her fortune is cursed, and she wants to give all her money to the IRS. As she explains her sad tale to her psychiatrist, Dr. Stephanson (Robert Cummings), it seems that when Louisa was young she had the choice of marrying rich playboy Leonard Crawley (Dean Martin) or poor but decent Edgar Hopper (Dick Van Dyke). She chose Edgar, but soon he became obsessed with providing a fine home and fortune for her; he got rich but worked himself to death in the process. Despondent, Louisa flies to Paris, where she strikes up a romance with expatriate artist Larry Flint (Paul Newman). When Larry invents a machine that creates paintings based on sounds, he becomes wealthy and famous -- and dies. Louisa returns to America, where she figures to break her streak by marrying Rod (Robert Mitchum), a business tycoon who already has lots of money. He resolves to take life easier and becomes a farmer, only to die in a strange accident with a bull. Louisa is drowning her sorrows one night at a sleazy night spot when she falls for second rate entertainer Jerry (Gene Kelly). They marry, and a now-wealthy Jerry develops a relaxed, carefree quality to his act that makes him a huge star, which leads to his being crushed by a mob of his biggest fans. What a Way to Go! boasted a screenplay by Betty Comdon and Adolph Green that featured many amusing film parodies and a score by Nelson Riddle; it also marked the final screen appearance of comic actress Margaret Dumont, best remembered as Groucho Marx's straight woman in several films. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shirley MacLaine, Paul Newman, (more)
- 1964
Politics and sports clash in this occasionally funny spoof centered around a downed U2 pilot and an extravagant oil sheik. John Goldfarb (Richard Crenna), a former football player, now pilot, sent on a reconnaissance mission over the Soviet Union, is lost and crash-lands in the Middle Eastern kingdom of Fawzia. King Fawz (Peter Ustinov) is constructing a football team to defeat Notre Dame and demands that Goldfarb coach his team or be handed over as a spy. In the interests of international relations, the U.S. State Department not only complies with King Fawz's request to bring the Notre Dame team to his country but in true diplomatic form insists that they throw the game. The romantic interest appears in the form of Jenny Ericson (Shirley MacLaine), an American reporter on an undercover assignment in the king's harem. A pleasant view in scanty harem garb, she lends mild amusement to the story with attempts to avoid the king's amourous advances. Although the humor falls short of its potential, the film was fortuitously saved from obscurity due to publicity generated by an unsuccessful lawsuit brought agianst the studio by the University of Notre Dame, which objected to a scene involving Notre Dame players fraternizing with harem girls. The screenplay for John Goldfarb, Please Come Home was written by William Peter Blatty who was later known for his award winning novel and screenplay The Exorcist. ~ Lucinda Ramsey, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shirley MacLaine, Richard Crenna, (more)
- 1966
Ideal and reality clash in this humorous tale of the heist that could have been. As scheming career cat burglar Harry Dean (Michael Cane) prepares to steal a priceless statue from the world's richest man, he seeks out the assistance of Eurasian showgirl Suzy Chang Shirley Maclaine). Though the likeable rogue's plan seems foolproof as he conveys the details to his partner Ram (Robert C. Carmel), the execution proves a detailed study in Murphy's Law. Constantly reinventing the plan as his originally ideal spirals ever more out of control, it seems as if Harry's heist is destined to fail. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shirley MacLaine, Michael Caine, (more)
Vittorio De Sica directs the 1967 episodic sex comedy Sette Volte Donna (Woman Times Seven), consisting of seven short stories each starring Shirley MacLaine. In "Funeral Possession," she plays opposite Peter Sellers as a widow at her husband's funeral. In "Amateur Night," she's a wife who's driven to prostitiution to get revenge on her adulterous husband (Rossano Brazzi). In "Two Against One," she plays an interpreter who gets naked and reads T.S. Eliot to an Italian (Vittorio Gassman) and a Scot (Clinton Greyn). In "The Super Simone," she's a houswife who acts insane to get the attention of her author husband (Lex Barker). In "At the Opera," she's a rich woman determined to get a specific dress. In "The Suicides," she forges a suicide pact with lover Alan Arkin. In "Snow," Michael Caine is hired to spy on her. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shirley MacLaine, Peter Sellers, (more)
- 1968
The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom stars Shirley MacLaine as Harriet Blossom, the wife of a moderately successful British brassiere manufacturer Robert Blossom (Richard Attenborough). When Harriet's sewing machine breaks down, her husband decides to save a few quid by sending one of his own employees to fix it. That employee is Ambrose Tuttle (James Booth), to whom Harriet takes such a fancy that she hides him in her attic, there to make love to her whenever she is so inclined. Her husband's "delusion" that he hears noises in his attic leads to a nervous breakdown, but the hidden Mr. Tuttle comes to the rescue by passing along stock tips which turn Mr. Blossom into a millionaire. When he finally does learn the truth, Mr. Blossom generously allows his wife and her lover to remain together -- and even presents Tuttle with his bra factory as a gift! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shirley MacLaine, Richard Attenborough, (more)
