The Apartment

Media:	DVD
Directed by:	Billy Wilder
Starring:	Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray
Release date:	18 December, 2001
List price:	~~$14.95~~
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The Apartment

Average rating: Stars

"That's just the way it crumbles . . . cookie-wise."

"The Apartment" is a dirty fairy tale as only Billy Wilder can tell them, a bouncing comedy that handles a frankly sordid theme with intelligence and compassion. Its message is that a young man who lets his bosses use his apartment to carry out extramarital affairs is operating in the best American tradition of individual initiative and enterprise. The dialogue is frank; the picture has atmosphere; and it creates a feeling about people.

Bud Baxter (Jack Lemmon) is just another night-school diploma in the personnel files of a big insurance company in New York until the fateful day when it dawn on him that if his own virtues aren't enough to get ahead; other people's vices might help. He lends his apartment to a department head who is having an affair with a telephone operator. Soon he is slipping his key to four philandering executives. His superiors write glowing reports on his work, and the reports soon come to the attention of the big boss (Fred MacMurray). "Baxter, as far as I'm concerned, you're executive material," he says . . . because he wants the key too. Before long, Baxter is an assistant to the boss. Suddenly he discovers that he has outsmarted himself--the girl that his boss takes to his apartment (Shirley MacLaine) is the girl of his dreams.

In "Some Like it Hot", Wilder achieved humanity through parody; in "The Apartment" he achieves it through a moral balance. There are no villains in "The Apartment". The closest one comes to a villain is Sheldrake (MacMurray), a name that must have personal significance for Wilder since there is a Sheldrake in "Sunset Boulevard", "Ace in the Hole", and "Kiss Me, Stupid". In the film he is the familiar suburban adulterer: the respectable husband and father who is never on time for dinner because he is with his secretary, or, when he tires of her, with elevator operator Fran (MacLaine). Inevitably, Sheldrake will pay for his adultery; if anything "The Apartment" is a moral fairy tale because Sheldrake pays doubly. Thus Sheldrake's ex-secretary/mistress informs Mrs. Sheldrake of her husband's infidelity with Fran and she throws him out of the house. However, now that he is available, Fran is not.

While it may be hard to imagine now, "The Apartment" actually shocked some moviegoers upon its initial release. The problem wasn't the central premise--an ambitious office worker performs dubious favors in exchange for career advancement--but the actual treatment of it. In the hands of writer-director Billy Wilder and his collaborator, scenarist I.A.L. Diamond, "The Apartment" became a razor-sharp farce that equated corporate success with immorality. Actually, filmmakers in communist Russia viewed it as an indictment against capitalism. The central character, "Bud" Baxter, is actually little more than a pimp for upper management while the girl of his dreams, elevator operator Fran Kubelik, is a demoralized working girl whose solution to a failed love affair is to commit suicide. These are not the most wholesome characters in the world and we're talking about the hero and heroine of the film! However, as played by Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, Bud and Fran not only win the audience's sympathy but also charm them in the process. The most astonishing thing about "The Apartment" is how Billy Wilder manages to keep the tone light and playful while exposing the worst aspects of Manhattan corporate life, from the drunken office parties to the casual adultery committed by married employees. Despite these controversial elements, the film racked up ten Oscar nominations and won five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay of 1960. [filmfactsman]

The Apartment - Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and more

Too marvelous for words

"The Apartment" is the model of the kind of movie they don't make anymore, not even Cameron Crowe, who took his inspiration for the excellent "Jerry Maguire" from this movie. Brimming with incredible (and incredibly real) dialogue, unobtrusive but picture-perfect direction, and outstanding performances, "The Apartment" defined the sophisticated-urban-romantic-comedy genre that later gave birth to such classic creations as "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "Sex and the City". There were funny stories about living in the big city before but they were never so well told, never so packed with humanity, and never so out-and-out FUNNY. Billy Wilder may be known for his acid-tongued humor about people stabbing each other in the back, but what makes "The Apartment" great is not its vitriol but the humanity of its two main characters, both of whom Wilder clearly cared about very much. I've never seen the ending as a cop-out, as many critics who relish Wilder's notoriously black humor have called it. This is a love story, folks; if you want a story that ends badly with two people who can't stand each other, look at real life. That's why we started writing stories in the first place, because life never goes where it would if we were in charge.

On a personal note, I'd just like to add that this movie actually saved my life. Many years ago a woman I loved left me one week before Christmas, taking all the furniture with her, leaving me only a chair, the TV and VCR, and a bare Christmas tree. Rather than kill myself like I wanted to, I watched "The Apartment" over and over, and seeing the similarly lonely C.C. Baxter gradually work things out gave me hope until I could do it for myself. I recommend this movie not just because it's a great movie, put together by artists at the top of their game, but because there is a spark of Life in it that survives, 45 years later, untouched and unfaded.

Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and more - The Apartment

guing twists

Directed by Billy Wilder, who is the director of "Sabrina" (1954)? You may even finish the film before realizing that you were engrossed in watching anticipating and maybe a little kibitzing.

I think it is a great story and well executed. There are a lot of details and clues as to what is to happen and who the mystery person is in Fran Kubelik's life. I am mot saying. One may think this is a timeless film, but at least the technology is dated; look at the steno pool equipment.

Jack Kruschen plays Doctor Dreyfuss who thinks that Jack Lemmon as C. C. (Bud) Baxter is wild and at it again. He administers first aid to Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine.)