"What A Way To Go" 1964

“What A Way To Go”

I woke up this morning, had the day off and decided to see what was on TV. I found a movie that was in my DVD collection and had to watch it. “What A Way To Go” starring Shirley MacLaine and a host of Hollywood leading men. This was made in 1964 at the height of Shirley’s first career. She would come back in the eighties to win an Oscar for “Terms of Endearment”. In this she is at her quirky, cute, lovable best.

Shirley plays Louisa May Foster who is a romantic that has read Thoreau and wants a simple life with a man she loves. Her mother wants her to marry Leonard Crowley played with cocky assurance by Dean Martin. Louisa hates his money and materialism. She dates him but under duress. He owns the town and thinks she is part of the package. Louisa runs to the one man in town not owned by Leonard, Edgar Hopper played by Dick Van Dyke. She is thrilled to be living her dream of a simple life. Edgar is lazy and easily distracted. She imagines their life like a silent movie with lots of pratfalls and kissing.

But then Leonard stops by their little home and insults the Hoppers. This drives Edgar to start working hard to prove he isn’t a loser. Soon Louisa is left alone as Edgar drives himself into the ground trying to bring Leonard down. Which he finally does and after calling Louisa to tell her the good news, he drops dead, leaving a rich widow.

Louisa runs off to Paris to try to get over it. She gets into a cab driven by Larry Flint, played with hot angst by Paul Newman. Larry is a starving artist who is always eating. He has created a machine to paint canvases to music. Louisa imagines their life together as a romantic French film. One afternoon, instead of the hip music that Larry plays, Louisa drops a classical record on the player. The resulting painting is a smash hit and suddenly Larry is the toast of the town. His art is everywhere, including on Louisa. She waits on the sidelines as his career zooms into the stratosphere. Then he is killed by the very machine that made him rich, leaving Louisa even a richer widow.

Ready to forget, she is picked up by millionaire playboy, Rod Anderson Jr. played suavely by Robert Mitchum. Louisa is scared to try again, but decides that since Rod is already made his fortune, she won’t lose him. This starts a hilarious segment of wonderful costumes as Louisa embraces her new life, which she sees as a “love story where you can’t wait to see what she’ll wear next”. There are a number of incredible costumes including a backless number that defies gravity. When Rod checks into his office and discovers that somehow his fortune has tripled while he’s been wrapped up in Louisa. His rage at this makes Louisa panic. She has been through this before. She finds out about his farm roots and beloved cow he had as a boy and suggests they return to that life.

So they buy a farm, some chickens, a cow and a bull. After a welcome party with some moonshine, Rod enters the wrong stall to do some milking. The bull is not happy and soon Louisa is a widow again with another 150 million in the bank. She runs off to try to forget.

Louisa has decided that she is a curse for the men she loves. She stops at a roadside diner and is romanced by a singer, the charming Gene Kelly. As Pinky Benson, he has been doing an act in which he sings in full hobo clown for the last fourteen years. When Louisa hears his first wife left because of his utter lack of ambition, she falls in love again. There life is like a romantic Hollywood musical. They have their golden time until Louisa decides to throw Pinky a birthday party. She encourages him to skip his clown makeup for one night so he isn’t late for his party . Suddenly he is transformed into something completely different. He is swept into super stardom with lightning speed.

Louisa waits on the sidelines as he makes records, movies and insists everything around him be painted pink. At the premier of his latest movie, we see that his ego has exploded to the size of a planet. Slipping out the side door to leave, he hears the fans chanting his name and can’t resist. Louisa watches in horror as Pinky is trampled to death.

Finally Louisa ends up in a therapist’s office. The doctor, played by Bob Cummings is trying to figure out why Louisa wants to give her fortune away. He listens to her story and falls in love with her. She finds the courage to tell him know and ends up running into Leonard, who has become a janitor. But a Thoreau reading janitor. Louisa falls one more time.

We flash forward to a simple farm. Leonard is on a tractor, more interested in reading than plowing. Louisa is taking care of their four children, Leonard Jr., Jonathon, Geraldine and Butch. Then Leonard’s plowing hit’s a bump and suddenly oil is shooting into the sky. Louisa stands in the yard watching in horror. Then the oil company pulls up, yelling that its their oil line that Leonard hit.

“Oh Leonard, my failure, my wonderful, wonderful failure!”

This movie is pure fun. It makes me smile every time. Shirley MacLaine is incredible. You believe that she would have all these men fall head over heels for her. I don’t know why it isn’t as well known as “The Apartment” or “Sweet Charity”. I enjoy it because it combines old Hollywood glamour of the fifties with the darker comedies coming into vogue in the early sixties. I waited a long time for it to come on DVD and it was worth the wait.