Billy Wilder Collection: Volume 1

Box set containing five classic movies from popular filmmaker Billy Wilder. In 'Avanti!' (1972), Jack Lemmon stars as American executive Wendell Armbuster. On travelling to Italy to recover his her's body after a car accident, Wendell soon becomes tied up in endless red tape, and is shocked to discover that his her had a mistress, who also died in the car c. The mistress' daughter, Pamela Piggott (Juliet Mills), arrives in Italy to collect her mother's body, and she and Wendell embark on a series of misadventures both comic and romantic. In 'Irma La Douce' (1963), Nestor (Lemmon) is a bumbling Parisian man who manages to get the sack after raiding a house of ill repute at which his boss is in attendance. Looking for work, he is taken on by streetwalker Irma La Douce (Shirley Maclaine) as her business manager, and soon finds himself falling in love with her. Determined to keep Irma faithful, Nestor disguises himself as an elderly English lord and becomes her sole client. All goes well, until Irma confesses her love to Nestor - not for him, but for his aged alter ego! In 'Kiss Me, Stupid' (1964), Dean Martin plays a sex-crazed singer who feigns a professional interest in an amateur songwriter, so that he can pursue a romantic interest in the latter's wife. However, the deceit does not all lay on Martin's side, and there follows a tangled web of bluff and double bluff, as the characters strive to work out who is fooling who. In 'One, Two, Three' (1961), C.R. MacNamara (James Cagney), an ambitious Berlin-based executive for an American cola company, sees his chances for advancement go up in smoke when his boss' daughter (Pamela Tiffin) comes on holiday to Berlin and ends up marrying a fierce young communist (Horst Buchholz). With the boss due to visit in a few days time, MacNamara sets to work, juggling angry Russians, officious Germans, and his own increasingly-exasperated wife, as he tries to put matters right. Finally, in 'Some Like it Hot' (1959), unemployed musicians Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Lemmon) go on the run after witnessing the St Valentine's Day Massacre. Pursued by gangsters, the duo are forced to disguise themselves as women and join Sweet Sue's all-girl band on the next train for Florida. Joe is attracted to Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe), the band's singer, while Jerry finds himself pursued enthusiastically by millionaire Osgood E. Fielding III (Joe E. Brown). Comic complications ensue.

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