The Apartment
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Movie Reviews of The Apartment
Movie Review: Surprisingly Poignant Dramedy Done in Classic Wilder Style
Summary: 5 Stars
Even though filmmaker Billy Wilder has made a number of masterpieces in different genres in a long career (e.g., "Double Indemnity", "Sunset Boulevard", "Some Like It Hot"), 1960's "The Apartment" still ranks as one of my favorites in his canon. The film has his trademark cynical humor (Wilder co-scripted with his longtime partner, I.A.L. Diamond), but it seems to have a deeper conscience and a more open heart than many of his other films. Even as a period piece, it is brimming with subtle observations about social mores and corporate culture in the early sixties. Very little has changed since then, which is why the movie doesn't seem as dated as others. In fact, the film seems to resonate even more today as a social commentary than the intended comedy it was supposed to be at the time. A very young and energetic Jack Lemmon plays C.C. Baxter, an ambitious insurance company desk jockey looking for his rung on the ladder. Toward that end, Baxter loans his apartment to sleazy, married executives at his office in need of a place to frolic with their mistresses. His novel way of networking does yield a promotion from the head of the company, J.D. Sheldrake (initials were big as "first" names back then), played to smarmy, hypocritical perfection by none other than Fred MacMurray, who was then mired in wholesome Disney films and soon "My Three Sons". He was a last-minute replacement for the great curmudgeon of a character actor, Paul Douglas, who died suddenly before production. Wilder wisely hired MacMurray, who had not tapped into his dark side since being duped by Barbara Stanwyck in "Double Indemnity".
The complicating factor in Baxter's upward mobility is that Sheldrake's mistress is Fran Kubelik, the office elevator girl with whom Baxter is already smitten. Since Shirley MacLaine is still quite active in movies today, it's often hard to remember what a charming, effervescent gamine she was before she starred in her own elephantine movies in the sixties. As MacLaine still is, she can be a wonderful actress, and she plays Fran effectively as a beaten victim of unwise love with a palpable depth of self-loathing. It's a lovely, unassuming performance, and the first conversation between Baxter and Fran in the elevator is quite sweet. But it is Lemmon, who dominates the picture with his affable demeanor and ironic sincerity. In anybody else's hands, Baxter would have been a put-upon schnook who deserves being punished for facilitating extramarital affairs in his apartment. Instead, Lemmon injects so much of his innate humanism into Baxter that the slow recovery of his conscience in the face of Fran's suicide attempt makes you happy with the inevitable ending. He also gives the first indication of the fine dramatic actor he was to become in his subsequent heavier films, "Days of Wine and Roses" and "Save the Tiger". Comparatively speaking, it's a modest addition to the Wilder filmography but one that does pierce the heart unexpectedly while making you laugh.
Movie Review: The Apartment: Uplifting Rather than Funny
Summary: 5 Stars
There is no question that THE APARTMENT was a worthy winner as best picture in 1960. A question that does come to mind is whether it should have won as best drama rather than best comedy. More than a few viewers have asked whether it is a comedy with darkly dramatic overtones or simply the reverse. The answer is a function of how one sees it today and how audiences saw it back in 1960. When it was released, American corporate culture was marked by dehumanized masses of workers endlessly crushed together in football-sized fields of offices. To rise in the pecking order, one had to leapfrog over the shoulders of one's co-workers often using any means necessary. Director Billy Wilder took this as the film's basic subtext to create a flashpoint around which America could revolve to examine whether this kind of lifestyle had any lasting endurance. By the film's end, as Shirley MacLaine quipped "Deal the cards," she indicates that this culture of death was powerful indeed, but if one were willing to abandon it in favor of seeking the company of like minded individuals, then those like her and Jack Lemmon could survive and thrive in a much smaller world of human touch and feeling. The thrust of the film then was one of dark comedy leavened slightly by the over the top comic reactions of sexual predators who were predators more in their minds than in reality. Today, as we view THE APARTMENT, we do not have the same cultural blinders of a deadening sense of corporate dehumanization that was then relevant. We see the huge offices of worker drones and think no more of them than we do of similar cinematic subtexts from THE TWILIGHT ZONE. Instead we see more clearly the comic end. We laugh at the foolish sexual excesses of Lemmon's key borrowing friends who find out too late that the women whom they take to the apartment go there with eyes wide open and see these pathetic losers as one step upward on the ladder of corporate success. Further, we today find a strange mixture of amusement and anger in some of the film's less noted scenes. Remember when Lemmon tells MacLaine early on that he knows her address, her social security number, and other private data? She acts bemused, but now we call that sort of knowledge gathering as perilously close to stalking. Remember when MacMurray has his shoes shined by a black shoe shine man? That black man was very nearly the only Afro-American in the entire film and he was a shoe shine boy. It is quite clear that both scenes encapsulate cinematic subtexts that unconsciously mark the 60s as a given but today ring painfully clear that what passes for comedy or drama or race relations depends heavily on the mindset of the audience far more so than on that of the director or cast. We see THE APARTMENT as a brilliant expose of corporate America, we marvel at the superb acting of the entire cast, but for the definitive analysis we must ultimately look inward to see what we bring to the cinematic table.Movie Review: It's not your average comedy; it's `above' average...
Summary: 5 Stars
When watching `The Apartment' I expected something completely different. I expected something outlandish and slapstick and more in the vein of `The Odd Couple' and I think that because I really had no idea what this movie was about. I didn't bother reading the back of the DVD case because I knew I wanted to see it based on its reputation alone. Why spoil the surprise, and so I brought it home and popped it in and here I am now, writing my review of one of the best comedies I've ever seen.
The reason `The Apartment' is so great is because it is extremely smart. It's funny, sure, but in an honest and believable manner. It's witty and original and the chemistry between the stars Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine is effortless.
The story is not a simple one to explain without giving too much away, and I hate giving too much away so I will attempt this the best I can. Jack Lemmon plays C.C. Baxter, a junior accountant for a New York City firm, who found an interesting way of climbing the corporate ladder. Baxter (of `Buddy Boy' as he is called by his workmates) lends out his apartment to the married men he works with who want to entertain their extramarital flings without their wives knowledge. This act leads to some confusion among those living in Baxter's building, garners him a bad reputation and proves to be quite the inconvenience to him, but professionally he is `moving on up'. Then he meets the beautiful Fran Kubelik and things look as though they might move in the right direction socially for him as well; but there are still a few roadblocks he must maneuver through before he's home free.
Jack Lemmon is irresistibly charming here. His `loser' Baxter is endearing to the viewer. When Fran asks why she can't fall in love with a man like him you are just jumping at the bit to convince her that he is the man for her. Shirley MacLaine is also great as Fran, truly mysterious but in a compelling way. She's sweet and charming and naturally and genuinely relatable. Fred MacMurray is fantastic as Sheldrake, Baxter's boss. He's got this genuine charm that aids to his manipulative nature and gives him a sense of reality. He is so real. Jack Kruschen is also great as Dr. Dreyfuss, but I would have nominated MacMurray over him if it were up to me.
`The Apartment' is a charming movie that is funny but one cannot overlook its dramatic air. There is a lot in this film that is `no laughing matter' so-to-speak, for it deals with some very serious subjects such as infidelity and suicide. Thankfully writer/director Billy Wilder approaches this with candor and grace, delivering a serious film that, while not making light of the subject, manages to infuse enough honest humor to make it utterly enjoyable.
Movie Review: Wilder at the top of his game. I LOVE this movie! Buy this 5 Stars
Billy Wilder's the Apartment is a dark comedy about sex and ethics in the business world. In this Oscar-winning offbeat tale we find out that stepping up isn't so much fun when it's someone you care about that you're stepping on.In the apartment, the late Jack Lemmon plays C.C.Baxter, a guy trying to move up at his job. His trick is that he lets his managers use his Manhattan apartment to entertain their mistresses. He's the man to go to; a lot of executives want to use his place to. Even though Baxter would like to get some sleep, things are going smoothly so smoothly that he decided to make a copy of the key to his apartment so J.D. Sheldrake the director of HR can have exclusive use of his apartment. On the same day, C.C. tries to make a move on Fran Kublelick, an elevator operator. The same woman J.D Sheldrake the Director of Human Resources. is cheating with. C.C. enjoys his big promotion on the day of the Christmas party. However, on the night of the party he finds out how hollow his victory is when Fran tries to take her life because Sheldrake dumped her in his apartment. Realizing what he did to someone he cared about, C.C. Baxter really has to think about his arrangement over the course of a long weekend. I won't give away any more, the movie is too good to spoil. You have to see it for yourself.
The late Billy Wilder knows how to write a story, even though the movie is almost 45 years old, the comments he makes about business and ethics are still relevant to 2005. Anyone coming out of college and going into the workworld needs to see this movie at least twice.
The late Jack Lemmon is great here as C.C the employee struggling with his ethics and identity in the working world. He's one of the all time great actors; Every time I watch one of his movies I see a character telling a story and not him. It's a pleasure to watch him act. Shirley Maclaine gives one of her best performances here as Fran Kubelick. I really felt sorry for the character of Fran Kubelick because Maclaine made her so real. The late Fred McMurray and Ray Walston (the dad on My Three Sons and My Favorite Martian for you people who remember that far back) are amazing in this movie playing the exact polar opposites of the nice characters they play on TV. These two especially McMurray are so unethical you can feel the smarminess coming off them.
The Apartment is an all around great movie and a Shawn James Five Star essential Video. You must buy this movie up and Wilder's equally hilarious Some Like it Hot. While you're at it pick up Office space and Clockwatchers. Compare and Contrast those two films to the Apartment. You'll find some interesting similarities in those three different workplace films.
Movie Review: A Very Nearly Perfect Film
Summary: 5 Stars
Most people consider Billy Wilder's best film to be SOME LIKE IT HOT, but while I love that movie, THE APARTMENT has not only been my favorite Billy Wilder film ever, but one of my favorite movies, period. Few movies have managed to blend together so many tragic, humorous, and romantic elements so completely and so well.Over the years I had managed to see THE APARTMENT five or six times. Each time I had seen it either as a TV broadcast film or on VHS. Therefore, I had never seen it in widescreen format. Seeing it for the first time in its widescreen version brought the film home with greater power than ever. What a great movie!
The acting in this movie is utterly beyond reproach. In my opinion, this was Jack Lemmon's finest role. It is impossible to imagine anyone else playing C. C. Baxter. Cast anyone else in that role, and you have a lesser film. Although Fred MacMurray today is primarily remembered for his role on MY THREE SONS, he was also a highly capable villain, and he was never nastier than he was here. Shirley MacLaine was never more adorable than as Fran Kubelik. Unbelievably, she lost the Oscar that year to Elizabeth Taylor (for BUTTERFIELD 8. Although no one today would compare either Taylor's performance to MacLaine's in THE APARTMENT, at the time of the voting Taylor was seriously ill and appeared to be in danger of dying. Unfortunately, from time to time Oscars are awarded less on merit of performance, but for other reasons. For instance, in 1940, Jimmy Stewart won the Oscar for THE PHILADELPHIA STORY primarily because voters felt bad that he hadn't won the previous year for MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON. But Stewart's winning meant that one of the greatest performances in the history of American cinema, Henry Fonda's portrayal of Tom Joad in THE GRAPES OF WRATH, was not recognized with an Oscar. (Far from being cutthroat competitors, Fonda and Stewart were best friends.) In the spring of 1961, Elizabeth Taylor's health apparently was a greater factor than Shirley MacLaine's much stronger performance.
Having seen this movie several times, what strikes me is how many memorable though apparently everyday moments remain vivid over time: Jack Lemmon using a tennis racket as a spaghetti strainer; the way that Lemmon quickly rifles through cards on his desk; the game of cards that Baxter and Kubelik play in his apartment while she recovers; the toothpicks and olives arranged in a circle in a bar; the quirks and mannerisms of each of Baxter's immediate superiors; Lemmon starting to shave only to realize that he had earlier removed and hidden the blades in his razor.
I don't buy many DVDs or videos, but I bought this one the second that I saw that it was available in widescreen.