I’m quite predictable. I like genre (not what people today dismissively call “genre films,” but the manipulation or embrace of genre conventions). I like smart parody. I like style over substance (when it’s motivated). I like Gene Kelly. Well, here’s a film that gives me all that and more!
Just look at the cast list: Shirley MacLaine, Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, Dean Martin, Gene Kelly, and Dick Van Dyke! Truly, What a Way To Go!
The screenplay for the film was written by famous lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green. The costumes (So Many Costumes) were designed by Edith Head. This is a late studio era dream!
The film sees a simple woman (MacLaine) who wants to live on love but ends up accidentally catapulting all four of her husbands to the Big Time—and their graves. Left with a $211,000,000 fortune she doesn’t want, she seeks psychiatric help to find out if she is literally cursed. The story of her life and marriages plays out in flashback as she narrates for the analyst.
Not only does each husband bedeck her in his own brand of opulence, we also get treated to little cinematic dream sequences wherein she compares life with each man to a genre of movie. These pastiche interludes may be the best part of the movie, but there are few weak spots. Its only flaws are those present in all sixties romcoms: automated furniture, silly “futuristic” technology, and a penchant for sight gags. However, in the world of the film, these elements work better than usual because of the overall embrace of cliche and genre tropes.
Beyond the fantastic cast—each used to their greatest advantage in clearly bespoke roles—and the broad range of humor, the star of the show is the design. The film earned Oscar noms for Production Design and Costume Design, with the latter being the movie’s crowning achievement. The immortal Edith Head was unleashed to create so many different types of costumes—especially for the film fantasy sequences—and she clearly made the most of the opportunity! Shirley MacLaine is practically a Barbie doll in a shopping montage in dozens of gowns and wigs that wear her instead of the other way around. Each ensemble is a joke in itself, and those jokes never let up.
If you love fashion or sixties comedies or any of the things I mentioned above, spend 111 minutes with What a Way To Go! The exclamation point in the title is well-earned
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