What A Way To Go!

Featuring an incredible ensemble cast, a hilarious script by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, gorgeous gowns by Edith Head (and plenty of them!), a musical number with Gene Kelly, and a startling (for the time) dose of irreverance and irony, "What a Way To Go!" is an enigma. How does a movie with all of these things going for it get absolutely lost and forgotten. Look at that list of stars! Shirley MacLaine, Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, Dean Martin, Gene Kelly, Bob Cummings and Dick Van Dyke. How any movie starring even two of these fine actors could fly under the radar is odd, but this movie has all of them, plus everything else mentioned above. Upon learning of this movie I immediately sought it out, and after watching it simply cannot believe that this movie is not more celebrated or well known today. So often the biggest criticism of classic comedies is that the humor of the time is simply not funny enough for today's sophisticated audiences (I tend to think it is actually the opposite, it is the audiences today that are not sophisticated enough), but this movie does things movies of the 1960's simply did not do. Filled with irreverance, irony, and absurdity, "What a Way To Go!" has inexplicably been left off of the list of great latter golden age comedies.

I am still trying to figure out how Fox was able to corral all of these stars into one movie in the first place. Shirley MacLaine plays Louisa May Foster, a simple country girl whose mother teaches her that she must marry for money and let love follow. What follows is the inexplicable, fantastical, marital adventures Louisa experiences, beginning in her home town of Crawley, Indiana, before taking her to Paris, New York, Hollywood, and ultimately back again. Louisa comes to believe that she is cursed, or rather that she curses the men she loves. But she does not curse them in a bad way, instead she curses them with wealth and success. Her first husband is mild-mannered, Thoreau-quoting Edgar Hopper, played by mild-mannered Dick Van Dyke. Edgar owns a two bit hardware store and refuses to sell it, and more importantly the land it resides on, to Lester Crawley, son of the town's richest man, and operator of the family fortune. Lester, played with typical smarmy charisma by Dean Martin, is also vying for Louisa, but she considers him a snake (the first moment I knew this movie was going to be funnier than I expected: as Louisa's voiceover tells us what she thinks of Lester, up rolls his Corvette, with a cobra in the driver's seat) and chooses the simple life with Edgar. After she sees how Edgar's pride and integrity are suffering at Lester's expense, she suggests that Edgar should take a more active role in the running of his hardware store. Almost overnight Edgar goes from lover of the simple life to crazed department store owner, determined to put Lester Crawley out of business. Edgar gets his wish, but almost immediately dies from too much hard work, leaving Louisa a small fortune, an extra last name, and heartbroken.

Escaping to Paris, Louisa meets Larry, played with bombast by Paul Newman, an idealistic young modern artist. The two immediately fall in love, and everything is fine until Louisa accidentily puts on a classical music record, which "inspire" Larry's ridiculous machines he uses to paint his hideous modern art. Soon Larry is selling the paintings for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and of course, soon the work kills him (actually the ridiculous machines "come alive" in a hilarious moment and overwhelm him). At the airport, waiting to go home, Louisa May Foster Hopper Flint meets Rod Anderson, played with macho charm by Robert Mitchum, self made millionaire/playboy, who offers her a ride on his private jet. Louisa thinks she has finally met her match, a man who is already filthy rich and successful, thus one she cannot possibly curse to any more of either! The two fall deeply in love (portrayed in a stunning dream sequence montage during which MacLaine wears literally 20 different Head gowns!), until Louisa asks Rod to give everything up and move to a farm with her. Rod accepts, liquidates his fortune, and is ready for the "simple life", until he gets drunk and tries to milk a bull (arguably the film's comedic highlight, it has to be seen to be believed).

Widowed for the third time, Louisa May Foster Hopper Flint Anderson stumbles into a small club and watches the pathetic little song and dance routine by life long clown Pinky Benson, played with a twinkle and a smile by Gene Kelly. After harmlessly suggesting Pinky perform his act (the same act he has done in the same club to the same tepid reaction for over ten years!) without his makeup, Pinky is shocked when he receives a standing ovation. This of course leads to overnight fame and fortune as a Hollywood megastar. Pinky's obsession with pink eventually gets the best of him, of course, and he dies in a tragic stampede caused by his rabid fans, and while he leaves the majority of his fortune to Louisa, he makes sure enough of it is set aside to erect a pink museum in his honor. Four times a widow, Louisa tries to give over $200 million of her fortune back to the federal government, which lands her in Bob Cummings' psychiatrist's office, where she tells him of her incredible misadventures. On her way out she bumps into the building's janitor, and is shocked to find it is none other than Lester Crawley, who now embraces his simple lifestyle! The two immediately fall in love, buy a farm and have five kids, and everything appears fine.....until Lester strikes oil! Louisa cannot believe she is about to be rich, again(!!), but as the closing credits begin to roll, two oil company men drive up and begin yelling at Lester for hitting their oil line! Louisa rejoices, she is finally in love and poor. Whew. Simply one of the funniest, gaudiest, wildest Hollywood comedies I have ever seen.