What a Way to Go!
Directed by J. Lee Thompson
Written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green; story by Gwen Davis
1964/USA
Apjac-Orchard Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Rod Anderson, Jr.: What are you doing after the orgy?[/box]

A stellar cast and lavish production enliven a pretty silly story.

The story is framed by Louisa May Foster’s (Shirley MacLaine) session with a psychiatrist (Robert Cummings) telling her life story.  When Louisa May Foster (Shirley MacLaine) comes of age, her money-grubbing mother wants her to marry Leonard Crawley (Dean Martin), the big man in Crawleyville.  Louisa despises the conceited Crawley and marries Edgar Hopper, a Thoreau-reading general store keeper.  One day, Edgar is inspired to go to work and just can’t stop until he has amassed a fortune.  He dies of overwork leaving a rich widow.

Louisa seems to be condemned to repeat the same story over and over again.  In turn she marries a starving American artist in Paris (Paul Newman), a bored millionaire who wants to go back to the farm (Robert Mitchum), and a bad small-time comic (Gene Kelly).  As soon as MacLaine thinks she has found happiness, her husband becomes successful and leaves a rich and overworked corpse.  Each of the segments contains a movie spoof showing life with that husband.

There was a sort of craze for what I call “cartoon-style” colorful larger-than-life story in the 60s which this film exemplifies perfectly.  It’s fun to look at, especially MacLaine’s fantastic wardrobe, but ultimately unsatisfying to me.

What a Way to Go! was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color amd Best Costume Design color.