is a 1964 American comedy film directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring Shirley MacLaine, Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, Dean Martin, Gene Kelly, Bob Cummings and Dick Van Dyke.
Louisa wants to give her $211 million to the U.S. government Internal Revenue Service, who believes it is an April Fools' Day joke.
Sobbing to her unstable psychiatrist, Dr. Stephanson, Louisa tries to explain why she wants to give away her money, leading to a series of flashbacks, interspersed with fantasy sequences.
Louisa instead marries Edgar Hopper, a poor shop owner who, inspired by Henry David Thoreau, prefers a simple life.
They are happily poor until the jilted Leonard arrives and ridicules their rustic lifestyle, humiliating Edgar and motivating him to achieve success.
Edgar transforms his small store into a tremendous empire, neglecting Louisa, ruining Crawley, and eventually overworking himself to an early death.
One day, Louisa plays classical music that produces a beautiful painting, resulting in Larry's first major art sale.
Fearful of losing him like her first two husbands, Louisa convinces Rod to retire to a small farm similar to his boyhood home.
After sharing a jug with a few locals, an inebriated Rod mistakenly attempts to milk a bull, which kicks him through the barn wall, leaving Louisa widowed once again.
On Pinky's birthday, Louisa suggests he perform without his usual time-consuming clown make-up and costume so they will not be late for his party after the show.
The story ends when Leonard, plowing a field, is distracted while reading Thoreau and apparently strikes oil after the tractor tire grinds into the ground.
Louisa is distraught, believing her curse has struck again until oil company representatives arrive and say that Leonard punctured their pipeline.
[5][6] In June 1962, Darryl F. Zanuck reportedly told Marilyn Monroe that she would make two films for 20th Century-Fox (which he was in the process of taking over again): a re-vived Something's Got to Give and What a Way to Go (the alternate title for I Love Louisa).
In July, Monroe reportedly approved J. Lee Thompson as director after watching Tiger Bay and Northwest Frontier and she was going to meet Gene Kelly to discuss his being her co-star.
[citation needed] In September 1962, Jacobs said that J. Lee Thompson, who was another client of his, would direct the film following The Mound Builders (which became Kings of the Sun).
[11][12] In December Thompson said Comden and Green wanted to call the movie What a Way to Go and that he hoped Frank Sinatra and Marcello Mastroianni to play husbands.
The stars would be MacLaine, Dean Martin, Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, Dick Van Dyke and Gene Kelly.
The previous year, MacLaine had co-starred with Mitchum in Two for the Seesaw, and she recommended him to director J. Lee Thompson who passed the endorsement on to the studio.
MacLaine was quoted as saying that she was happy to work with "Edith Head with a $500,000 budget, 72 hairstyles to match the gowns, and a $3.5-million gem collection loaned by Harry Winston of New York.
"[27] John Simon of The New Leader, who was noted for his frequently scathingly uncomplimentary reviews, wrote "The mildest thing that can be said about this film is that it is an abomination".