The Apartment a Billy Wilder Classic

 

THE APARTMENT (1960)

Directed by Billy Wilder

United Artists, 125 minutes, Not-rated.

★★★★

 

 

 

Sight and Sound magazine recently rated The Apartment as the 54the greatest film in English. Back in 1960 it won five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director (Billy Wilder) and was nominated for six others. Like many 62-year-old movies a lot about The Apartment is dated, but this rom-com/drama remains vital.

 

It follows the travails of C. C. “Bud” Baxter, a single insurance clerk whose Midtown Manhattan digs are much in demand by superiors looking for a safe trysting place for their mistresses. Bud’s compliance gets him raises and promotions, but the line between mensch and doormat is easily transgressed. Ever wonder what it would take to buy you? Bud sells his soul for a gold executive washroom key and ingratiates himself with his immediate boss Jeff Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray). Soon so many other execs are queuing to use Bud’s apartment that they are spending more time there than he. (One of them is Joe Dubisch, played by Ray Walston, soon to be famous in the TV comedy My Favorite Martian.)

 

Bud isn’t really a mensch or a doormat; more like a sad sack. He is secretly attracted to Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), but his hopes are dashed when he finds out that Sheldrake has his eyes on her and plans to seduce her in his apartment. Sheldrake promises Fran that he intends to divorce his wife (Naomi Stevens) to be with Fran and she is naïve enough to entertain such dreams. Bud just can’t catch a break. Sheldrake drugs Fran and Bud has to clean up the mess by contacting a neighbor, Dr. David Dreyfuss (Jack Krushen), who proceeds to berate Bud for his debauched lifestyle. Fran’s cabbie brother Karl (Johnny Seven) also wants a piece of Bud.

 

As it transpires, Fran is a smalltown girl who is content to play cards with Bud. Of course, they will fall in love. Bud will find his mojo in the classic movie formula of you can only push a guy around for so long. Another oft-used device is that you don’t want to PO a secretary. When Sheldrake’s secretary Miss Olsen advises Fran that Sheldrake is a rat with no intention of every marrying her, an outraged Sheldrake fires her. Bad move! She knows all about his extracurricular activities and spills the beans to Mrs. Sheldrake.

 

The Apartment came hot on the heels—pun intended—of Some Like It Hot and though it did not do as well at the box office, it was also a hit and another feather in Jack Lemmon’s cap of stardom. He is superb in the film and funny without dressing in drag. His improvised scene of using a tennis racket as a spaghetti strainer is a hoot. Mostly, though, Lemmon impresses by milking pathos. Lemmon makes the transition to assertive self-confidence, and we want to cheer when he gives smarmy privileged executives a metaphorical kick in the keister. He is Everyman calling out the bullies. MacMurray makes a good bully; before he starred in TV’s My Three Sons he was often cast as a heavy.

 

Director Billy Wilder excelled in connecting with audiences, which is why seven of his films were cited as culturally significant by the National Film Registry. He masterfully mixed comedy and respect for the underdog, and delivered messages without resorting to Western Union. Rumor holds that Wilder didn’t like his actors to go off script, but Lemmon did so at least twice and Wilder didn’t let his ego get into the way of improvement.

 

The Apartment’s conquering male ethos outlived any nod-nod wink-wink charm it ever had, but it’s not hard to see how women are still viewed as sexual conquests in the modern workplace. The Apartment suggests that bullies should beware of enraged secretaries and of a mensch tiring of being trod upon.

 

Rob Weir