Billy Wilder was at his peak in the late '50s, releasing the romantic comedy trilogy of Some Like it Hot, Love in the Afternoon and The Apartment, his three best-known, best-loved films. This one, though not as wildly funny as Some Like it Hot, is a great '50s-era film. As with the other two Wilder films I mentioned, The Apartment thrives on sexuality as its plot device. The sex all takes place offscreen but charges the film with an energy not often found in the entertainment of that sanitized decade.
Jack Lemmon stars as a low-level employee at an insurance film who has a great apartment with only one catch -- every executive in the company uses the apartment to take their mistresses to, forcing Lemmon out on the street at all hours. He wants to complain about this, but every time he starts to say anything, one of the executives will promise his sacrifice won't go unrewarded. So he hangs in there and gets promoted several times, even as his life seems more and more hellish.
His only hope for happiness seems to lie in a friendly elevator operator, played by a very young-looking Shirley MacLaine. But here's the catch -- she's having an affair with one of the executives, played by absent-minded Fred McMurray. As you can see, there's only one or two degrees of separation between all the characters, which is the Wilder tradition. This one, more so than the others, has a serious undercurrent in MacLaine's choice between the two suitors.
The Apartment has a lot of laughs but weighs more toward drama and romance. It's still a great film specimen -- Lemmon is always wonderful in these kinds of movies and MacLaine (before she came out of the New Age closet) has a vibrant youthful energy going on. What's really great is seeing McMurray cast against type. I mean, he was the dad in "My Three Sons," he shouldn't be committing adultery with a god. And in Jack Lemmon's apartment no less...
Product DetailsOriginal Title:The ApartmentActors: David Lewis - Fred MacMurray - Jack Kruschen - Jack Lemmon - Ray Walston - Shirley MacLaineConditi...More at iNetVideo.com
Winner of five 1960 Academy Awards including Best Picture, The Apartment is legendary writer/director Billy Wilder at his scathing, satirical best, an...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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