The Billy Wilder DVD Collection (The Apartment / Avanti! / The Fortune Cookie / Irma la Douce / Kiss Me Stupid / One Two Three / The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes / Some Like It Hot / Witness for the Prosecution)

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Even if "nobody's perfect," Billy Wilder sometimes came close. This DVD box presents a strong cross-section of films by one of Hollywood's greatest directors, and although his early Paramount years are not covered (they're available in a different set), the box does include a couple of Wilder's woefully underappreciated autumnal gems. Chronologically speaking, 1957's Witness for the Prosecution is the earliest film in the set, a crackerjack courtroom drama derived from Agatha Christie. It gives especially tasty roles to Charles Laughton and Marlene Dietrich. With Some Like It Hot, Wilder merely created the film widely considered the best comedy of the sound era, with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon impersonating female musicians in the Roaring Twenties. Marilyn Monroe is the songbird tired of getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop. Wilder took home three Oscars® for The Apartment, his exquisitely bittersweet look at an organization man (Lemmon) who loans out his flat for his boss's liaisons.

One, Two, Three is a breathless Cold War comedy (and a time capsule of its era) with James Cagney as a Coca-Cola executive in Berlin. Irma La Douce teams Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine in a racy Parisian love story that became a box-office smash. With Kiss Me, Stupid, Wilder suffered a rare flop, although the once-scandalous sex comedy looks better and sharper as it ages. The Fortune Cookie, which nabbed an Oscar for Walter Matthau, is one of Wilder's most cynical tales, but the last two films in the set represent Wilder's late-career romantic flowering. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes arranges slapstick around the melancholy, misogynistic figure of Holmes, who might just be a directorial self-portrait. Avanti! is a delightful, leisurely romance about a businessman (Lemmon again) who loosens up while in Italy settling his late father's business. It's a lovely end note for a snappy, often acerbic collection. --Robert Horton

Description

The Billy Wilder DVD Collection includes the following films: The Apartment, Avanti!, The Fortune Cookie, Irma la Douce, Kiss Me Stupid, One Two Three, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Some Like It Hot, and Witness for the Prosecution.

Customer Reviews:

classic Wilder collection.......2006-02-25

For Billy Wilder fans, this is a must. Get this box set now before it is discontinued now that Sony distributes MGM's library.

great collection....but............2004-12-29

This is a great collection but why is one of the best, Double Indemnity, missing ??? It is a good collection of a genius who was such a major influence on modern film making. Both his comedy and dramatic films are in this set. I have to say that his dramas hold up a lot better then the comedy films. The constent theme of stupid women, or the whore with "a heart of gold" now seems just pathatic and not endearing.

Average customer rating:

A Highly Entertaining French Farce
Irma la flop
Irma La Douce
Love movies
Irma La Duoce 1963

Irma La Douce
Starring: Jack Lemmon , Shirley MacLaine , Lou Jacobi , Bruce Yarnell , and Herschel Bernardi
Director: Billy Wilder
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

Classic Comedies | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

DVDs Under $7.49 | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

( I ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
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ASIN: B00005LOLC
Release Date: 2001-09-18

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In 1963, Billy Wilder's Irma La Douce was one of the biggest box-office hits of the year, grossing twice as much as The Great Escape and The Birds. Yet this popular movie has been almost completely forgotten by film history, even to fans of Wilder or stars Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine (the same trio had made a masterpiece, The Apartment, three years earlier). It doesn't represent the best work of those legends, but Irma provides tart entertainment. At least some of the movie's popularity can be chalked up to its subject, which was pretty risqué for the time: Lemmon plays a Paris policeman who falls in love with a prostitute (MacLaine). The script was adapted from a stage musical, but Wilder decided to cut the songs, instead developing the humor and romance into his own blend of bittersweet perversity; this Technicolor-fantasy Paris is kind of a dark cousin to Gigi. Lemmon is in his prime period of hand-wringing self-doubt, and MacLaine is perfectly in tune with his rhythms, especially in scenes that add tenderness to the sometimes queasy mix of moods. Ironically--given the nixing of the songs--the film won its only Oscar for André Previn's adaptation of the stage play's music into a wordless orchestral score. --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews:

A Highly Entertaining French Farce.......2007-08-01

An all time tour-de-force for Jack Lemmon and Shirley Maclaine (whose performance was Oscar nominated). Jack plays a poor schnook street cop, who bumbles his way from losing his job to pimping for Irma (Maclaine), the top hooker of the neighborhood, with whom he he falls madly in love. Jealously doing everything he can to prevent Irma from "plying her trade", Lemmon becomes his own rival in this hilarious comedy of bizarre plot twists.

Irma la flop.......2007-04-19

This is one of my least favorite Jack Lemmon movies. The plot was slow, the jokes weren't funny. I don't know, this just didn't do it for me. It didn't seem characteristic of Billy Wilder's usual witty style.

Irma La Douce.......2007-02-08

Light hearted comedy by two great actors. Great interplay between them and a joy to watch many times.

Love movies.......2007-01-11

I loved this when I saw it 35 years ago. I wanted to see it and let my kids who are over 30 see it.

Irma La Duoce 1963.......2006-05-08

Meet Nestor (Jack Lemmon 1925-2001), a young man with a very complicated love life . Employed as a business manager to Irma La Douce (Shirley MacLaine 1934- ) -a proud and profitable lady of the streeet -the poor guy has gone and fallen in love with here ! So how do keep a populare Parisienne lika Irma faithful ! Simple . Disguise yourself as a eldery English lord who immediatly becomes Irma?s sole client and means of support ! But what?s jeleous manager to do when illustrious Irma claims that the man she?s in love with is not the smitten Nestor but the dotty old Lord himself . Wonderful homour and story . You will be able to see some scenes of the Les Halles market how is torn down in the 1970?s . High Quality transfer . Recommended

Average customer rating:

OOO La La!..La Douce Is Sweet

Irma la Douce [Region 2]
Starring: Jack Lemmon , Shirley MacLaine , Lou Jacobi , Bruce Yarnell , and Herschel Bernardi
Director: Billy Wilder
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

( I ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
ASIN: B00005KISZ

Customer Reviews:

OOO La La!..La Douce Is Sweet.......2007-01-19

Well, we already knew the teaming of Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and director Billy Wilder was magic. Just have a look at "The Apartment" for proof of that. And here they are, together again,putting their wonderful spell on the viewer in the delightfully funny "Irma La Douce".

"Don't believe that Paris, is the city that never sleeps", says the opening narration. At 5:00 in the morning, the only sights and sounds on the streets of Paris are the sanitiation workers. But...not too far from the big city, is another district, and it's bustling with workers in the meat and fish market, and produce vendors preparing their goods. You will also find find a street lined with cafes and hotels, and the women that work them. They claim their stations, dressed in colorful and slinky garb, with fitting names like "Amazon Annie", Kikki the Cossack" and "Lolita" , waiting for that one big catch..the one that will set them up for life. They are "pro"fessionals! And there is none more professional than "Irma La Douce"(Aka Irma, the sweet). Dressed in her trademark green stockings, and always toting her little dog(also dressed in green, and a bit of a boozehound), she's the most sought after pro in the neighborhood. She's the best!

Everybody wins in this business. The girls turn their money over to their "managers", the managers bribe the cops, and the cafe owner serves up the drinks and words of wisdom. Everything runs like clockwork. That is until the day, an honest cop is assigned the beat. His first order of business is to make a raid on the girls(costing him his job). He falls big time for Irma though, and must figure out a way to keep her off the streets. And so Voila! ...dressed as a rich Englishman, he becomes Irma's only client, and wears himself out in the process. Watching him keep up the pace, working to pay Irma the big bucks, while trying to keep his identity a secret is as fun now, as it was over 40 years ago.

Jack Lemmon is at his comedic best. He'll have you grinning all the way through. Shirley MacLaine's performance of the sweetest and sexist pro ever will have you saying "ooo la la" . You'll fall in love with Irma immediatley. The screenplay (Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond) is one of the cleverest and wittiest written. The film is nealry 2 and 1/2 hours, and not only does it go by quickly, you will wish there was more.

A wonderful supporting cast includes Lou Jacobi, who plays "Moustache", the philosophizing bartender, who has been everything from a Lawyer to a Doctor in his past("But that's another story..."), Herschel Bernardi, Hope Holiday and Joan Shawlee. The costumes by Orry-Kelly are marvelous, and a score by Andre Previn, completes this great crew.

A classic comedy and a class act..a must have for fans of Wilder, Lemmon and MacLaine.

Merci Beaucoup....enjoy...Laurie

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