Directed by J. Lee Thompson. Written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green
Louisa May only wants one thing and it’s practically nothing: a man to love who loves her back and for them to have a simple life together.
That proves harder than you think in J. Lee Thompson’s What A Way To Go!, a campy romantic comedy (if you think of romance as the sweeping, unquestioned old Hollywood kind) whose cast is only rivalled in splendour by the wardrobe Shirley MacLaine dons as our besieged protagonist.
Partitioned into segments detailing just how Louisa May came to marry five different men who all attain great success and untimely death, it’s essentially a rinse-repeat story four times over satirizing archetypal go-getter men so lionized within capitalism.
Dick van Dyke stars as Edgar Hopper, a happy soul whose want to make Louisa happy drives him to build a retail empire; Paul Newman is a bohemian artist living in France who falls victim to money’s influence on the arts; Robert Mitchum is a tycoon who can’t stand the idea of business succeeding without him; Gene Kelly is every vain, self-obsessed old Hollywood power player stereotype you can imagine. Dean Martin also stars as an early suitor for Louisa, jumping on as the hood ornament of this Rolls Royce of Hollywood stardom.
MacLaine is both a foil to each, and her own champion. As Louisa May, her vulnerability melts you down, and her physical comedy makes it all a breeze. Few actresses have her uncanny ability to be glamorous, do a pratfall, and wrench a tear from you, but here’s MacLaine.
Her suitors are all wacky in their own particular way, and the actors riff off their public personas to some extent, making What A Way To Go! feel like a sly bit of self-satirization that still celebrates itself with homages to its classic cinematic styles, a self-referential gambit that gets its ballast from the filmmaking magic only old Hollywood can provide.
There are grand sets to behold, some dazzling dance numbers, colors aplenty and a bouncy energy to every scene that lends credence to the studios’ then-nickname of dream factories. Totally spellbinding is MacLaine’s opulent wardrobe whose assembly probably registered as a near extinction event for minks, so decadent are some of the coats she wears, and those heavy layers are contrasted with some revealing bikinis and gowns that prove the Hays Code’s influence truly was over by 1964.
What A Way To Go! is a lighthearted showcase for the virtues of the classic Hollywood musical, even if it’s a little short on actual musical numbers, offering non-stop fun, and the material decadence that’s so emblematic of some of its greatest hits. The story is simple, but not unsatisfying, and provides enough of a stage for its stars to shine on, and that they do, showering What A Way To Go! with star power and making it a quintessential, if lesser-known, Golden Age film that arrived as the lights began to dim on the era.
Mikkel Frederiksen 