Shirley MacLaine wears a wig made of actual pink mink. That is not a metaphor. It is an actual piece of fashion history from a film that defines the word "excess" in a way modern CGI spectacles honestly can't touch. When people talk about What a Way to Go!, they usually start with the costumes. Or the five husbands. Or the fact that it basically feels like five different movies shoved into one neon-colored blender.
It's 1964. Hollywood is changing. The studio system is gasping its last breath, and 20th Century Fox is throwing every dollar they have at the screen to see what sticks. This movie is the result. It is a dark comedy, a musical, and a satire of the American Dream all wrapped in a Technicolor bow. If you haven't seen it, you're missing out on a time capsule of pure, unadulterated camp that actually has something pretty cynical to say about money.
The Premise of a Cursed Fortune
The setup is simple but weirdly dark. Louisa May Foster, played by MacLaine with this frantic, charming energy, just wants a simple life. She wants a husband who isn't obsessed with the rat race. The problem? Every time she marries a man who is poor and content, he becomes obscenely wealthy and promptly dies.
It’s a "be careful what you wish for" story on steroids.
She starts with Edgar Hopper (Dick Van Dyke), a guy who lives in a shack and refuses to work hard. She encourages him. He works too hard. He builds a retail empire and drops dead from the stress. Then comes Larry Flint (Paul Newman), an expatriate artist in Paris who invents a painting machine. Wealth. Death. Then Rod Anderson (Robert Mitchum), a billionaire who tried to retire to a farm. Death. Finally, Jerry Benson (Gene Kelly), a service-station attendant who becomes a movie star. You guessed it. Death.
The movie is told in flashback as Louisa tries to give away her $211 million fortune to the Internal Revenue Service. They think she's crazy. Her psychiatrist (Robert Cummings) thinks she's a "black widow" with a midas touch. But really, What a Way to Go! is a commentary on how the drive for "more" eventually consumes the person doing the driving.
A Visual Feast Designed by Legends
You cannot talk about this film without talking about Edith Head. She was the costume designer, and she had a $500,000 budget just for MacLaine’s clothes. In 1964, that was an astronomical sum. We are talking about 72 different hair styles. We are talking about jewels on loan from Harry Winston that required 24-hour armed security on set.
The visual language of the film changes with every husband.
When Louisa is with Newman’s character in Paris, the movie parodies French New Wave cinema. It’s grainy, artsy, and pretentious. When she's with Gene Kelly, the whole thing turns into a big-budget MGM-style musical parody. The shifts are jarring, but they are supposed to be.
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The Directorial Vision of J. Lee Thompson
J. Lee Thompson directed this, which is hilarious when you realize he also directed The Guns of Navarone and Cape Fear. He wasn't exactly known for lighthearted rom-coms. Maybe that's why the movie feels a bit sharper than your average Doris Day flick. It has a bite.
The script was handled by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. These are the legends behind Singin' in the Rain. They knew exactly how to poke fun at the tropes of Hollywood because they helped invent them. They take the "happy ending" and turn it into a recurring nightmare for the protagonist.
Why the Critics Were Split
At the time, critics didn't quite know what to make of it. Some thought it was too loud. Too much. The New York Times was lukewarm, basically saying the movie was as overstuffed as the characters' bank accounts.
But looking at it now? It’s a masterpiece of production design.
There is a sequence where Robert Mitchum’s character builds a house that is entirely pink. Every single thing. The grass is painted pink. The sheep are dyed pink. It’s a level of commitment to a visual gag that you just don't see anymore. It predates the hyper-stylized worlds of directors like Wes Anderson by decades. It’s "Barbiecore" before Barbie was even a twinkle in the zeitgeist's eye.
The Star Power is Ridiculous
Look at that cast list again.
- Paul Newman
- Robert Mitchum
- Dean Martin
- Gene Kelly
- Dick Van Dyke
That is a Mount Rushmore of leading men. Each one represents a different archetype of the mid-century American male. Newman is the moody intellectual. Mitchum is the cool, detached tycoon. Martin is the sleazy, charming playboy. Kelly is the song-and-dance man.
The fact that Shirley MacLaine holds her own—and frankly, carries the movie—against all five of them is a testament to why she was a massive star. She had to play five different versions of the same woman. She had to be the emotional anchor in a movie that was constantly trying to fly off the rails into pure absurdity.
The Hidden Cynicism of the 1960s
Underneath the fur coats and the musical numbers, What a Way to Go! is actually pretty bleak. It suggests that success is a trap. Every time Louisa find a man she loves, the American obsession with "success" and "progress" kills him.
Edgar Hopper (Van Dyke) is the most tragic. He was perfectly happy being a nobody. But once the spark of greed was lit, he couldn't stop. He worked himself into an early grave to build a department store empire. The film suggests that the "simpler life" Louisa craves is impossible once the machine of capitalism gets a hold of you.
Even the ending—which I won't spoil, though it's sixty years old—flips the script on what it means to be "lucky."
How to Watch It Today
Finding What a Way to Go! can be a bit of a hunt depending on which streaming services are fighting over the Fox catalog this month (it's mostly under the Disney/Hulu umbrella now). It’s worth the search.
If you are a fan of fashion, it is a mandatory watch. Edith Head’s work here is arguably her most creative and unhinged. If you like set design, the "pink" sequence alone is worth the price of admission.
Actionable Ways to Appreciate the Film
- Watch for the parodies: Keep an eye out for how the filming style changes. The "silent movie" segment during the first marriage is a direct homage (and roast) of early 1900s cinema.
- Focus on the color theory: Notice how color is used to represent wealth. As the money grows, the colors become more artificial and aggressive.
- Check the background: The "art" created by Paul Newman’s character was actually meant to mock the abstract expressionism popular in the 60s.
This isn't just a "chick flick" or a standard comedy. It’s a massive, sprawling, expensive experiment in style. It captures a moment in time when Hollywood thought the answer to television was to make everything bigger, brighter, and more expensive than anything a small screen could ever hope to show.
Go find a copy. Look for the pink mink. Stay for the Gene Kelly dance numbers. Realize that they really, truly do not make them like this anymore.
To get the most out of your viewing, try to find a high-definition or 4K restoration. The Technicolor palette used in the film relies on deep saturation that gets muddied in low-quality streams. Pay close attention to the transition between the third and fourth husbands; the shift from the "European Art Film" aesthetic to the "Billionaire Lifestyle" is one of the smoothest tonal shifts in 60s cinema. Check your local library or specialty film retailers for the Blu-ray release, which often includes behind-the-scenes looks at Edith Head’s legendary costume sketches.