The Apartment
Winner* of five 1960 Academy AwardsÂ(r), including Best Picture, The Apartment is legendary writer/director Billy Wilder at his scathing, satirical best, and one of "the finest comedies Hollywood has turned out" (Newsweek). C.C. "Bud" Baxter (Jack Lemmon) knows the way to success in business...it's through the door of his apartment! By providing a perfect hideaway for philandering bosses, the ambitious young employee reaps a series of undeserved promotions. But when Bud lends the key to big boss J.D. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray), he not only advances his career, but his own love life as well. For Sheldrake's mistress is the lovely Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), elevator girl and angel of Bud's dreams. Convinced that he is the only man for Fran, Bud must makethe most important executive decision of his career: lose the girl...or his job. *1960: Director, Story and Screenplay, Editing, Art Direction (B&W)
Romance at its most anti-romantic--that is the Billy Wilder stamp of genius, and this Best Picture Academy Award winner from 1960 is no exception. Set in a decidedly unsavory world of corporate climbing and philandering, the great filmmaker's trenchant, witty satire-melodrama takes the office politics of a corporation and plays them out in the apartment of lonely clerk C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon). By lending out his digs to the higher-ups for nightly extramarital flings with their secretaries, Baxter has managed to ascend the business ladder faster than even he imagined. The story turns even uglier, though, when Baxter's crush on the building's melancholy elevator operator (Shirley MacLaine) runs up against her long-standing affair with the big boss (a superbly smarmy Fred MacMurray). The situation comes to a head when she tries to commit suicide in Baxter's apartment. Not the happiest or cleanest of scenarios, and one that earned the famously caustic and cynically humored Wilder his share of outraged responses, but looking at it now, it is a funny, startlingly clear-eyed vision of urban emptiness and is unfailingly understanding of the crazy decisions our hearts sometimes make. Lemmon and MacLaine are ideally matched, and while everyone cites Wilder's Some Like It Hot closing line "Nobody's perfect" as his best, MacLaine's no-nonsense final words--"Shut up and deal"--are every bit as memorable. Wilder won three Oscars for The Apartment, for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay (cowritten with longtime collaborator I.A.L. Diamond). --Robert Abele
The Apartment Accessories
 Some Like It Hot
Sunset Boulevard - The Centennial Collection
All About Eve (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Irma La Douce
The Best Years of Our Lives
Bonnie and Clyde
On the Waterfront (Special Edition)
Midnight Cowboy (Two Disc Collector's Edition)
Double Indemnity (Universal Legacy Series)
Casablanca
The Apartment Reviews
Well, that's how the luck turns, keywise. Poor old baster, Baxter. Now, I have watched The Apartment more than 15 times since my first viewing on cable's TCM channel and subsequently on video, so those are a lot of lumps. Although we chicks have made head-turning advancements in the workplace, now and then smashing through the glass ceiling like the underpaid stuntwomen that we are, some broads (present company excepted) still fall for the tricky quick steps of boardroom merengue.
My two cents here, then, will zoom in tightly on the movie's portrayal of working women and its exploration of their inner lives. A great many reviewers before me already have written such excellent critiques of the immortal Billy Wilder's remarkably timeless farce here on Amazon.com. You'll see why The Apartment earned five Academy Awards including Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Picture. for his immense square footage. Come to think of it, with all the illicit fun folks seemed to be having back in the 1960s, perhaps I wasn't meant to be a gleam in my mother's eye, either. After you have, please sit back and let Wilder and I.A.L. To avoid redundancy, I will not provide a comprehensive analysis of The Apartment (Collector's Edition).
Sheldrake, I get onion eyes. Such is the power of great acting and masterful direction, anchored by a superb script. Forty-nine years after The Apartment: same dance, same aria. Thus, every time I watch the scenes of awkward intimacy between Shirley MacLaine's Miss Kubelik and Fred MacMurray's Mr. Through Wilder's film lens, viewers get to study the contours of hearts that have been broken, barely mended, only to be fissured again. Instead of acting as if they have two left feet, these sisters should be kneeing the bossman's twins and asking for a raise while he hits the highest note in his career. As attached as I am to my apartment, I sense his misery each time he's forced to walk those posh Upper West Side streets.
The Apartment was released in 1960, and in nearly half a century some things remain the same when it comes to matters of the heart. Only, he's the one who keeps leaving. He's a lucky so-and-so to pay less than market rate (even for 1960). Nevertheless, he has what we urbanites today call a revolving-door apartment. Yet another wild circumstance that this dark comedy-drama presents for viewers' critique and voyeuristic pleasure. Only then can I swallow, breathe and chuckle the hurt away. Well, when the four chambers belong to the female of the species, that is. Suited saber-toothed tigers in fedoras carrying little black books have evolved into savvy Bluetoothed cybercats with mobile phones that have roaming charges and unlimited space for all those "purrsonal" contacts.
Baxter (Jack Lemmon in impeccable form) lightens the mood with a spasmodic facial mannerism, piercing the air with his trademark cackle curtailed by his own hyperstressed pronouncements. And every time I listen to Edie Adams warn MacLaine secretary to elevator operator about those "ringydingdings," I get a lump in my throat as wide as a boulder blocking love's highway. Or, could it be that the working stiff's lustful goals have turned so absurd that an accidentally flushed BlackBerry is considered more serious than a few *lodged* staples and paper clips. Baxter's circumstances is more profound.
Oh my. Back in 1960, I wasn't yet a gleam in my father's eye. Speaking of pleasure, the adulterous fantasies played out in the film are darkly Wilder. The movie should be required viewing at hedonistic office parties to remind everyone, especially the male of the species, about the tragic consequences of shredding business ethics for the purpose of getting down to business on a desktop or in a restroom stall. But then something wonderful happens: Lovable, lonely loser C.C. However, considering all of the impersonal technology in homes and offices today, who's to say that the alienation as personified by Fran Kubelik's and C.C. (That's an inside joke; only viewers of The Apartment would get it). Baxter's apartment situation is first-rate.
I couldn't more strongly recommend that you purchase The Apartment (Collector's Edition). Sexual pathos aside, the comedy of C.C. Diamond's story unreel in black-and-white before your eyes. Just as anti-corporate cynicism has endured into the 21st century, so has The Apartment easily one of Billy Wilder's finest satires.
It was the last black-and-white film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, until Schindler's List (1993), Steven Spielberg's feel-good Holocaust flick. The one time that the Jack Lemmon character "scores," it's with a married woman whose husband is away in Cuba. Shirley MacLaine's character takes an overdose of sleeping pills; Jack Lemmon's character admits he tried to shoot himself as a younger man.
The movie is mostly about sexual mores, however. It also features suicide attempts by the two protagonists. Many of the female characters are chippies who get picked up by older married businessmen. The movie won a number of Oscars.
The suicide theme plays through to the very end, when MacLaine hears the "pop" of a champagne cork and thinks Lemmon has shot himself again. I thought it was adapted from a Broadway play, but it wasn't. . This movie provides great sociological insight into 1950s liberal New York's sexual mores. Fred MacMurray, of the wholesome "My Three Sons" fame, is a total slimeball in this picture.
At the office Christmas party you see all sorts of couples making out (presumably they're not married couples), and one of the company's telephone operators does a great mock striptease with a long strand of pearls. They're both drunk on Christmas Eve and she's looking for some action.
Then Fran tries to kill herself on Christmas Eve in Baxter's bedroom, while Baxter is on his drunken way home with the equally, intoxicated, wife of an incarcerated jockey. He manages to get promoted several times by allowing his slimey bosses to use his apartment for a 'love nest,' even at the expense of his health. His own loneliness seems to be about to end when the lovely, Fran Kubelik ( Shirley McLaine, who is electric in this role ) agrees to a date, but stands him up after succumbing ( once again ) to the lines of the philandering director of the company Baxter works for. Although Billy Wilder's view of romance always seemed to be slightly askew, even with darker subject matter ( attempted suicide, as a for instance ) there was usually a current of hope beneath the ascerbic wit inherent in his films.
THE APARTMENT was a wonderful satirical harpooning of the corporate world in the sixties ( when I first saw it ),and it hasn't lost any of its 'edge' in the intervening decades. Baxter is promoted by J.D Sheldrake ( played to oily perfection by Fred MacMurray ), the aforementioned director, in return for access to his apartment. Jack Lemmon's character, C.C. Baxter, has inadvertantly found his key to success, and oddly enough it happens to be the same one that opens his apartment door. If you have not seen this movie you owe it to yourself to do so.
It is at the top of the food chain comedy-wise.
I would say "pre-cubicle days" but it was nearly duplicated at an insurance company in New York in real life around 1989. Which are adult films in the right sense of the word. There are things to laugh at, but the horror aspect of it all might not be apparent. And most frighteningly there is a scene early on in the movie that shows show Jack Lemmon working in an insurance company in a sea of desk. Fred MacMurray was wonderful, and in this movie I can really see what people saw in Shirley MacLaine. Had I seen the movie beforehand I would not have been able to work there without giggleing every time I entered that gigantic room.
The black and white film will put people off, but it suits it. It was the last black and white film to win "Best Picture" (at least I think so) and it deserved it. If you are 16, the odds really are that you are just going to "get it". And it really started me off on watching more movies by Billy Wilder. Very, very good and a bit sad.
"The Apartment" offered and still does, a view of corporate America and the eventual evil of "greed" versus the good of self-integrity and love, boiled down to a few individuals, with both essential romantic and comedic aspects powerfully intact. In the beginning, while more or less satisfied with his lot in life, C.C. And I really can't remember when I first saw this 1960 "best picture" winner, since I was only five or six years old when it first came out. It's one of those movies that if you first see it and like it and understand it early on, upon further screenings, will only engender even more appreciation and love for it. Because, "Mister Sheldrake" (Fred MacMurray as the main bad guy), who Fran seems to be having had a long-time affair with, is the very big "boss" which Baxter has to impress, corporate-wise.
This works from moment one to the classic final scene, as BOTH a comedy and a drama, and even as a seasonal Christmas/New Year's movie in some ways, and mixes all within a film without any serious or even minor flaws. Our home office has 31,259 employees, which is more than the entire population of uhh. Baxter (corporate ladder-climbing, good-hearted nerd/stooge) in a lighter semi-dramatic/comedic role, in a film which still triumphs from start to finish within its central written cores and still resonates, to this day. We're one of the top five companies in the country. I work on the 19th floor. And what else really matters. Ordinary Policy Department, Premium Accounting Division, Section W, desk number 861.".
with eternal, relevant characters and never-ending, compelling filmic themes. My "top ten" includes many great films (Close Encounters, the original Apocalypse Now, Titanic, 2001, Wizard of Oz, et al present day), but this will, I think, always remain very special. "The Apartment," released more than two and a half decades earlier, still packs a more powerful punch however, and probably always will, along the same general lines, and every shot, every scene, every line, every individual actor's performance, every situation, is a winner, with no filler. This is Billy Wilder at his best, and `nuff said. Spoilers aside, this is really a movie with one of the most satisfying, albeit brief "happy endings" where the nice guy actually finishes gloriously first eventually, at least with the girl.
Personally, I have been, can, and guess will always be able to identify with Jack Lemmon's character ("Bud or Buddy-Boy"), from beginning to end, which is that of the basic corporate/personal "nice guy" who has always struggled to only finish near the bottom, company-wise, and girl-wise, because of basic morals and ethics concerning both. When "Fran" (Shirley MacLaine, in her most adorable role ever, imho), the girl/woman he personally loves and wants, somehow, strangely enters the situation, it complicates everything. Because while he does not get the higher pay scale corporate position he wants, he does eventually get what he REALLY wants, which of course is, the girl. Natchez, Mississippi. One, his seemingly but not really comfy, average Manhattan west Central Park APARTMENT (circa-1960, which nobody but the ultra-rich could afford these days), and two, how he had rented the same off and on to a bunch of higher-up corporate co-workers of dubious moral fiber to fool around in, all in hopes of climbing the corporate ladder. With a wonderful musical score by Adolph Deutsch (along with various other melodies scattered about, music-wise), this is, in my opinion, a virtually "perfect movie." In an early off-screen narrative at the beginning, written nearly half a century ago, our hero (Lemmon) states, "On November 1st, 1959, the population of New York City was 8,042,783.
And legendary Billy Wilder, one of the greatest filmmakers ever, contributes here, writing and directing, cookie-wise, a second to none effort throughout. I have seen many great films during my days on this planet, by many great directors, writers, and/or producers. This whole triangle arrangement begins to fall through however, early on, within, and throughout the movie, where "business" morals eventually clash with our hero's personal feelings and his real life, outside "the office and the desire to get ahead in the business world." . In retrospect, it's no wonder this film won best picture in its day, and I have loved it for several decades now, and always will.
It's just so good. I really can't say that any other film I've ever seen deals so right-on with the undefined lines and eventual conflicts oftentimes inherent within conflicting corporate and real-life environments as far as business and personal romance/love possibilities go except perhaps for "Wall Street" by Oliver Stone (another of my favorite movies, but not a top ten). While lots of other cinematic efforts have tried to do what this movie does, none have ever really come close, and maybe none ever will.
Jack Lemmon has always been and will always remain, one of my favorite actors. Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray turn in absolutely wonderful performances as the three main characters in this very believable, "love triangle," but this movie is just full of great efforts by so many others including Ray Walston, Jack Kruschen, Naomi Stevens, and Edie Adams. In other words, this movie is still as timely and great today as it ever was.
Around this time, he had already proven himself as a great actor with earlier Wilder and other comedic/dramatic efforts, especially with his genius performance in virtually the same year, in the brilliant "Days of Wine and Roses." Here he plays C.C. But over time, upon repeated viewings, I've come back to it with so much enjoyment and a warm feeling that this was (and is), truly one of my top ten Hollywood movies of all time. If you laid all these people end to end, figuring an average height of five feet six and a half inches, they would reach from Times Square to the outskirts of Karachi, Pakistan.
I know facts like this because I work for an insurance company - Consolidated Life of New York. And all of it still rings true today.
Baxter had problems.
|
