The Apartment (1960)

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 Amazon.com essential video

Ah, insurance companies....

Very, very good and a bit sad. 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. I would say "pre-cubicle days" but it was nearly duplicated at an insurance company in New York in real life around 1989. Had I seen the movie beforehand I would not have been able to work there without giggleing every time I entered that gigantic room.

Fred MacMurray was wonderful, and in this movie I can really see what people saw in Shirley MacLaine. And it really started me off on watching more movies by Billy Wilder. Which are adult films in the right sense of the word. If you are 16, the odds really are that you are just going to "get it". There are things to laugh at, but the horror aspect of it all might not be apparent.

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. November 29, 2008

One of my top ten films of all time...

I have seen many great films during my days on this planet, by many great directors, writers, and/or producers. 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. 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. 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. It's just so good. And all of it still rings true today. "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 other words, this movie is still as timely and great today as it ever was.

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. And legendary Billy Wilder, one of the greatest filmmakers ever, contributes here, writing and directing, cookie-wise, a second to none effort throughout. 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 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. 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.

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. 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. 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. And what else really matters? 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. 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. 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. with eternal, relevant characters and never-ending, compelling filmic themes.

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. 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. We're one of the top five companies in the country. Our home office has 31,259 employees, which is more than the entire population of uhh... Natchez, Mississippi. I work on the 19th floor. Ordinary Policy Department, Premium Accounting Division, Section W, desk number 861..."

In the beginning, while more or less satisfied with his lot in life, C.C. Baxter had problems. 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. 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, "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 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."

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). "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...
October 31, 2008

The Apartment

Great film, this is Shirley McLaine and Jack Lemmon at there best.We see two lonely people look for love in all the wrong places. October 30, 2008

An "Apartment" worth checking into!

There is without a doubt this movie deserved the 1960 Best Picture award,not to mention the other Oscars that contributed to this movie's success. A great cast of Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray (hard to believe this was Fred before his My Three Sons and Disney family movies). This is a movie that has its humorous moments and serious. By the way,if I lived in New York, I would stay at this "apartment". The cost..67 dollars a month back then if you heard Jack Lemmon's dialogue in this movie. But...I am sure the price has jumped since the movie's release in 1960..we can dream can't we? Enjoy your time with Billy Wilder's "The Apartment...worth checking into! August 23, 2008

Delicious 'Lemmonaid'!

It SHOULD be sufficient to report that Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine feature in this superb classic movie.

These two superb actors, carry this brilliant story and script along, effortlessly. Supporting cast members also contribute although to be honest I, personally, have never liked Fred McMurray in 'bad guy' roles. This doesn't detract from his acting ability, though.

This is a super movie and there must, in all honesty, be something wrong with anyone who doesn't find it a rattling good tale - brilliantly acted and Directed throughout. August 3, 2008

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