How much you like WHAT A WAY TO GO! depends a lot on how much pleasure you'll derive from seeing Shirley MacLaine in about a hundred costumes, each more outrageous than the last. She's the whole show and that's no small feat considering her leading men. As a too-often married widow, MacLaine recounts her marriages to doctor Bob Cummings. There's sensible Dick Van Dyke, unsavory would be suitor Dean Martin, starving artist Paul Newman, wealthy industrialist Robert Mitchum and big time star "Pinky Benson," played by Gene Kelly. It's all an excuse for MacLaine to get into one wild escapade after another and it's all set against a constantly changing though always colorful background...this is the glossiest of glossy movies. It's strange because although it's not particularly funny, it's very watchable. Of the leading men, Van Dyke and Martin fare best, essentially playing variations of their established personas. Newman is at sea in this type of light farce and Mitchum makes no attempt to be funny. Kelly's segment is dreadfully peppy. He almost manages to upstage MacLaine. The great Margaret Dumont has a cameo as MacLaine's mother. Directed with a surprisingly light touch by J. Lee Thompson, who was most famous at the time for directing THE GUNS OF NAVARONE!
Review of What a Way to Go!
