Shirley MacLaine & Jack Lemmon's careers went all the way to the top in 'The Apartment.' |
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Check it out & join! https://www.facebook.com/groups/178488909366865/
The 1960 Billy Wilder
comedy-drama, The Apartment, just keeps
showing better with time.
Wilder's work is
typically labeled as cynical, which reminded me of a quote that a cynic is the
ultimate romantic. If so, perhaps that was Billy Wilder’s general outlook.
However, in The Apartment, I'd call
his vision honest, with a touch of romanticism.
Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, and Billy Wilder during filming of 'The Apartment.' |
The Apartment was Wilder's career peak, with the film
winning best picture Oscar, Wilder as best director, and screenwriter
(with I. A. L. Diamond). I adore Wilder’s movies, but The Apartment is Billy’s best blend of the comedic and dramatic, as
well as gracefully walking the fine line between risqué and raunchy. Wilder's
look at modern day social and sexual mores is sharp-witted and painfully honest,
but tempered with a tinge of hope and happiness.
Lemmon's likeable Bud Baxter does some unlikeable things to get ahead. |
The Apartment begins Nov. 1, 1959 and was released the
summer of 1960. Wilder was riding the zeitgeist with his look at post-war
America, in the workplace and the bedroom. The
Apartment makes a tart response to all the tease of 1959's Pillow Talk and all the sex comedies to
come. While the game-changing Doris Day-Rock Hudson bedroom comedy has its
pleasures, it presents a Hollywood-ized picture of mid-twentieth century sexual
attitudes, palatable for the masses. Pillow
Talk is all brightly lit, with pretty people, clothes, immaculate sets, merry
music, along with fluffy dialogue and story. This is a stark contrast to The Apartment, with the sterile
workplace, realistic characters, smoky bars, rainy streets, and the drab
apartment. While Pillow Talk's dialogue
has no consequences, The Apartment's
pointed barbs cost reputations, jobs, marriages, and nearly a life.
The story is simple:
C.C. “Bud” Baxter strives to ride the wave over the multitudes of other
faceless workers through hard work AND pimping out his apartment for
philandering higher-ups. At first, Baxter’s efforts pay off, but then the
situation spins out of control.
Jack Lemmon supplies the booze and the laughs in 'The Apartment.' |
Jack Lemmon is the
perfect comic everyman as Baxter. He’s viewed as a schnook by his superiors, a
heel by his neighbors and bland boyfriend material by his adored elevator
operator. Lemmon’s persona was distilled to perfection with his work in The Apartment. Jack’s likeable but not
afraid to be a jerk, his physical comedy bits are delightful, and his comic and
dramatic timing with the great dialogue here are flawless.
Shirley MacLaine as Fran Kubelik, about to make some changes on New Year's Eve. |
Shirley MacLaine can
be over the top, but here, she is the model of restraint as Fran Kubelik. With
Wilder and Diamond's wonderfully written role, MacLaine is warm, funny, and touching
as the adorable young woman who’s stuck in her lot in life. I've read that Marilyn
Monroe wished she had played Fran. No doubt that Marilyn would have been just
as touching and funny. But the trope back then was that a sexy girl in Fran's
situation would have been written as a good-hearted floozy. Fran is written not
as a sexy tart with a heart, but just an ordinary girl, trapped by her
circumstances. I think it was for the best that Fran was played by the
appealing but approachable Shirley.
Fred MacMurray was awfully good at playing the heel, for someone who preferred playing nice guys! |
Fred MacMurray was
almost always cast as the good guy. It's notable that Billy Wilder got him to
play the heel twice, in two of his best films, Double Indemnity and The
Apartment. I'll preface this by saying Fred is one of my least favorite
film actors. I find MacMurray, like Glenn Ford, competent at best, deadly
dull at worst. As exec J.D. Sheldrake, it's disconcerting to see nice guy Fred
playing such a hypocritical heel. Lucky for Fred, some of the best zingers
in this film are between him and MacLaine. As the exec who is stringing working
girl Fran along, his player rationales and her knowing responses still resonate
in today's world. MacMurray is quite good here and it's notable that Fred got
some flak from fans over playing such a role in this adult movie. After The Apartment, MacMurray embarked on a
latter day career of Disney dads and the dad of My Three Sons.
Jack Kruschen is just great as the doc next door, who also prescribes sound advice. |
Jack Kruschen plays a
bracing character as the doc next door, who comes in handy at a crucial moment
in the film. Dr. Dreyfuss is Baxter's conscience and has some memorable lines,
and Kruschen plays him with no nonsense, but a big heart.
Ray Walston proves
once again that he's best in small doses, as one of the self-centered
co-workers, who are the apartment’s temporary occupants. Walston’s caricature comic
snark is much more tolerable as an acting side dish than his wearing attempt as
a Wilder film leading man, in ‘64’s Kiss
Me, Stupid.
Edie Adams surprised me in a character role as the discarded secretary of exec Sheldrake. |
Edie Adams has a
snappy supporting role as Sheldrake's bitter secretary. Adams has some great
lines and though it costs her character’s job, I enjoyed her engineering Fred's
comeuppance. Johnny Seven—a name
that would make Seinfeld’s George
Costanza jealous—has a great cameo as Fran's irate cabdriver brother-in-law.
The Apartment’s supporting cast is stellar, down to bits by
future TV faces: David White as a smarmy exec, later perfected as Larry Tate on
Bewitched. Hal Miller as the drunk
Santa is also in warm up mode, later he played drunk jailbird Otis on The Andy Griffith Show. And Joyce
Jameson plays The Blonde, a tweak to memorable Wilder star Marilyn Monroe, and
Jameson later played a similar role on The
Andy Griffith Show.
For once, a movie ad that sums up the movie accurately! |
I could fill this
review with Wilder and Diamond's wonderfully witty and knowing lines—but watch
this classic for yourselves and enjoy. Aside from the dialogue, the story is
one of Wilder's sturdiest vehicles, a model of construction.
My only beef is that the
two male leads are a bit old for their roles: a slightly jowly Lemmon was 35
when he played worker bee up-and-comer Baxter, and especially MacMurray, at 52,
playing a married man of 12 years, with two young teen-age sons. And Fred was 26
years older than girlish MacLaine, twice her age. However, this is typical for
Hollywood, and just a quibble.
The Apartment has a view of life that could be viewed as an
accurate time capsule, but frankly, is still timely. Success over happiness,
sex and the workplace, ethical behavior versus getting ahead—it still
resonates.
The look when MacMurray's married man tries to give girl on the side MacLaine's Fran a C-note for Christmas is powerfully played. |
Wittily directed,
scripted, and performed, The Apartment
reminds me of All about Eve. You can
find something new just about every time you view these multi-layered classics.
Or just enjoy the most memorable moments over and over.
My friends Bruce and Gwyneth watch 'The Apartment' every New Year's Eve. Perhaps they have pasta and play gin rummy, too? |