One, Two, Three
by Billy Wilder
List Price:
Our Price: $5.99
You Save: $8.99 (60%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Arlene Francis, Horst Buchholz, Howard St. John, James Cagney, Pamela TiffinDirector: Billy Wilder
Brand: CAGNEY,JAMES
Cinematographer: Daniel L. Fapp
Producer: Billy Wilder
Writer: Billy Wilder
Producer: Doane Harrison
Producer: I.A.L. Diamond
Writer: I.A.L. Diamond
Writer: Ferenc Moln?r
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Dubbed); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dubbed, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 115 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-07-15
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of One, Two, Three
Movie Review: Billy Wilder's Amazing Rapid-Fire Comedy
Summary: 4 Stars
Our setting is West Berlin, Germany, just after the Second World War where James Cagney plays C.R. MacNamara, a Coca-Cola executive assigned to look after his boss's daughter Scarlett Hazeltine (Pamela Tiffin) while her parents are away vacationing in Europe. As the story progresses Scarlett falls in love with an East German Communist named Otto Piffl, played by Horst Buchholz. When MacNamara finds out that the underaged Scarlett is engaged to be married all hell breaks loose as he (with the help of his assistant Schlemmer) hastly undertakes the task of transforming Piffl into a respectable, presentable, and noble husband when Mr. and Mrs. Hazeltine arrive back to greet their daughter.
MacNamara's trouble doesn't end there, however. Phyllis MacNamara (Arlene Francis) is unhappy with her life in Berlin, and for the sake of their children she pleads with her husband to take back his old position in Atlanta and return to live in the United States. He refuses and she threatens to leave him.
Billy Wilder directs this fast-paced comedy with sheer brilliance it will leave your head spinning. The cast here is top-notch and James Cagney is non-stop hilarious. For a film that has at least a chuckle a minute it is nowhere to be found on AFI's Top 100 Laughs. Fans of Howard Hawks' "His Girl Friday" should enjoy and appreciate this highly underrated farcical gem.
Summary of One, Two, Three
James Cagney gives one of the richest, funniest, most breathlessly paced performances of his career (The New York Times) in this Billy Wilder comedy that defrosts the Cold War with gales of laughter! C. R. MacNamara (Cagney), a top-ranking executive stationed in West Berlin, is charged with the care of his boss visiting daughter. But when he learns that she's gone and married a fierce young communistand that his boss will be arriving in town in 24 hoursMac must transform the unwilling beatnik into a suitable son-in-law or risk losing his chance for advancement! Before you cansay one, two, three, his plans have spun out of control and into an international incident that could infuriate the Russians, the Germans and, worst of all, his own suspicious wife (Arlene Francis)!Hardly ever mentioned in the category of lightning-paced comedies--the His Girl Friday and Preston Sturges kind--is this breathless cold war farce from the great Billy Wilder. Adapted from a one-act play by Ferenc Moln?r, Wilder and collaborator I.A.L. Diamond's hilarious screenplay is a whirlwind collection of one-liners, gags, and double-entendres, anchored for the cameras by Jimmy Cagney's cagey and frenetic performance (one of his best), and, under Wilder's direction, executed with diamond-like precision. The gangster-movie icon plays a Coca-Cola executive in West Berlin (the film's 1961 release put it squarely in the middle of the world's laserlike focus on East vs. West tensions) who has parlayed expanding American consumerism into a chance to break through the Iron Curtain and sell "the pause that refreshes" to thirsty comrades. But when his Atlanta boss's visiting 17-year-old daughter (Pamela Tiffin), a boy-crazy Southern tornado, reveals that she has secretly married an American-hating German Commie (Horst Buchholz), Cagney's big-American-fish-in-a-European-pond lifestyle is threatened, especially once Daddy hops a plane to Germany. As the plot accelerates, the lines literally spit out of the cast's mouths--the title refers to Cagney's character's rapid-fire rattling off of lists of tasks--and Wilder's penchant for urbane nastiness is perfectly measured by the order of the whole crazy circus. This movie takes gleeful potshots at both sides of a conflict that terrified audiences in its day, but has aged beautifully to become a fascinating time capsule, an exhilarating litany of zingers and a potent blueprint for razor-sharp political satire. Cagney would retire after this movie for 20 years (returning for 1981's Ragtime), and it's hardly any wonder: he has the energy of 10 performances in this one film. --Robert Abele
Comedy DVD Video
DVD Video
- Action & Adventure
- African American Cinema
- Animation
- Anime & Manga
- Art House & International
- Classics
- Comedy
- Cult Movies
- Documentary
- Drama
- Educational
- Fitness & Yoga
- Gay & Lesbian
- Horror
- Kids & Family
- Military & War
- Music Video & Concerts
- Musicals & Performing Arts
- Mystery & Suspense
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Special Interests
- Sports
- Television
- Westerns
Movies most talked about in BILLY WILDER ON DVD
Billy Wilder Gift Set (The Apartment / The Fortune Cookie / Some Like it Hot / Kiss Me Stupid)TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2008-03-04; DVD
Best price: $21.99
Price in other shops:
The Billy Wilder DVD Collection (The Apartment / Avanti! / The Fortune Cookie / Irma la Douce / Kiss Me Stupid / One Two Three / The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes / Some Like It Hot / Witness for the Prosecution)WILDER,BILLY; Release date: 2003-07-15; DVD
Best price: $43.99
Price in other shops:
Billy Wilder SpeaksRelease date: 2006-10-17; DVD
Best price: $13.29
Price in other shops:
The Spirit of St. LouisWarner Brothers; Release date: 2006-08-15; DVD
Best price: $11.65
Price in other shops:
The Major and the Minor (Universal Cinema Classics)Universal; Release date: 2008-04-22; DVD
Best price: $6.82
Price in other shops:
Witness For the ProsecutionRelease date: 2001-12-11; DVD
Best price: $5.99
Price in other shops:
Avanti!Avanti; Release date: 2003-07-15; DVD
Best price: $5.83
Price in other shops:
Kiss Me, StupidTWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2003-07-15; DVD
Best price: $12.89
Price in other shops:
The Private Life of Sherlock HolmesTWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2003-07-15; DVD
Best price: $5.83
Price in other shops:
The Seven Year ItchRelease date: 2001-05-29; DVD
Best price: $6.24
Price in other shops:
Similar DVD Movies
Arsenic and Old LaceWarner Brothers; Release date: 2000-08-29; DVD
Best price: $7.99
Price in other shops:
Yankee Doodle Dandy (Two-Disc Special Edition)CAGNEY,JAMES; Release date: 2003-09-30; DVD
Best price: $9.96
Price in other shops:
Mister Roberts (Keepcase)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2006-09-19; DVD
Best price: $8.66
Price in other shops:
The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are ComingTWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2002-10-15; DVD
Best price: $6.85
Price in other shops:
Some Like It HotMONROE,MARILYN; Release date: 2001-05-22; DVD
Best price: $5.89
Price in other shops:
The Apartment (Collector's Edition)TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2008-02-05; DVD
Best price: $7.82
Price in other shops:
CasablancaBOGART,HUMPHREY; Release date: 2000-02-15; DVD
Best price: $6.38
Price in other shops:
Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Special Edition)Sony; Release date: 2001-02-27; DVD
Best price: $5.55
Price in other shops:
Avanti!Avanti; Release date: 2003-07-15; DVD
Best price: $6.18
Price in other shops:
Witness For the ProsecutionRelease date: 2001-12-11; DVD
Best price: $5.99
Price in other shops: