Irma la Douce

“A story of passion, bloodshed, desire and death... everything, in fact, that makes life worth living.”

Nestor Patou (Jack Lemmon) is a policeman fired on his first day, and the street where he lands makes no sense to him yet. Irma La Douce (Shirley MacLaine) works it, and Nestor cannot stand the thought of any other man going up her stairs, so he invents a second self to be the only customer she has. Billy Wilder sets the two of them in the Paris of the stage musical he took the songs out of, and the lie between them is what holds them close.