Shirley MacLaine has terrible luck with men. In What a Way to Go!, she tells her therapist all about it.This is a really silly movie, but in its own way it's a classic. If you go into it with the knowledge that it's very fluffy and 60s-esque, you'll probably like it. I mean, who wouldn't want to see vignettes of Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, Dean Martin, and Gene Kelly, falling in love with Shirley MacLaine? There's tons of eye candy up on the big screen in this one, and a very important lesson: Money can't buy happiness.This really is a must-see for ladies (and I'm not just talking about the yummy men); Shirley's wigs and costumes are reason enough to see the film. She's absolutely darling to watch, and I lost track of how many times I swooned over her dresses.The movie spoofs each of the men's screen personas, which is pretty cute. Paul Newman is given steamy scenes, Dick Van Dyke is given "aw shucks" scenes, and Gene Kelly dances. I'm not spoiling anything, but just as a heads up, don't get attached to any one of the men. Think of it as a string of vignettes, rather than a linear love story in which one guy gets the girl. It's better that way, though; would you be able to choose between Bob and Gene?

This movie makes fun of wealth, poverty, all sorts of theatrical genres and humanity itself. Giving away my age, I saw it at the theater when it came out and being a fan of just about everyone in it, was NOT disappointed. I would love to see it again and share it with my grand-kids who have discovered they love the old films. I really think the industry would be shocked at how well the sales of this one (and several others) would go. The movie itself takes nothing seriously and is absolutely hilarious. One comes to believe that being married to this woman is tantamount to taking cyanide, only much, much funnier. There's not much to be said about it that isn't already in print, but to experience it is to experience all these stars at their funniest and seemingly, most ingenious!

There were several wonderful comedies in the sixties, exclusive of the Doris Day fluff. In this one, Shirley MacLaine has a problem with marriages. Well, not so much with the marriages, with the husbands. You see, marrying her is a death sentence. Each of the husbands starts out as a good catch, but over time they feel they must go for financial success. And succeed they do. As a matter of fact, they become incredibly rich. Unfortunately, through their greed or carelessness or some cosmic force, they meet their individual ends in some creative way, leaving Shirley with another fortune. She longs for the simple life without all the frills and is trying to find real love. The strength of this offering is the clever direction, the outlandish events, and the utter humor (the black kind) as the world collapses on these guys. I saw this film in high school and it was just as captivating today as it was then.

If the fans of the various leading men and Shirley MacLaine just attended this film, What A Way To Go was certainly guaranteed to be a hit at the box office. It would have to be to justify the salaries of the cast involved.It was that and more. What A Way To Go is a bright comedy showing the talents of Shirley MacLaine to full advantage, including her dancing talents in the segment involving Gene Kelly. Shirley relates in flashback to a lecherous psychiatrist, Bob Cummings the incredibly rotten luck she's had with her marriages. Widowed four times Shirley is worth over $200,000,000.00. Her pattern is to marry men who are poor with one exception and they become rich and then meet with bizarre deaths. Her husbands in order were Dick Van Dyke, Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, and Gene Kelly. Mitchum was already rich, but became incredibly much richer while married to Shirley. He also met the most bizarre death in the film which you'll have to see because it's too funny to reveal.Kelly played a song and dance man who played in a clown makeup. Each of the segments involved a dream sequence where Shirley relates to Cummings that in her ideal stage of the marriage it reminded her of some happy movie genre. In the Kelly sequence it involved a musical and we get to see Shirley dance which she didn't do enough of on the big screen. There is another man in her life in Dean Martin, but how he figures in you have to see What A Way To Go. This was the farewell film appearance for both Margaret Dumont who played Shirley's mother and for Tom Conway who had a bit role.What A Way To Go still retains a lot of the good humor for today's audiences. I could see a remake of it with someone like Julia Roberts being married to Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, etc. They'd have to go some to replace a dancer like Gene Kelly though.