‘The Apartment’: A Still Perfect View 1960

Shirley MacLaine & Jack Lemmon's careers went all the way to the top in 'The Apartment.'

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The 1960 Billy Wilder comedy-drama, The Apartment, just keeps showing better with time. 

Wilder's work is typically labeled as cynical, which reminded me of a quote that a cynic is the ultimate romantic. If so, perhaps that was Billy Wilder’s general outlook. However, in The Apartment, I'd call his vision honest, with a touch of romanticism.

Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, and Billy Wilder during filming of 'The Apartment.'

The Apartment was Wilder's career peak, with the film winning best picture Oscar, Wilder as best director, and screenwriter (with I. A. L. Diamond). I adore Wilder’s movies, but The Apartment is Billy’s best blend of the comedic and dramatic, as well as gracefully walking the fine line between risqué and raunchy. Wilder's look at modern day social and sexual mores is sharp-witted and painfully honest, but tempered with a tinge of hope and happiness. 

Lemmon's likeable Bud Baxter does some unlikeable things to get ahead.

The Apartment begins Nov. 1, 1959 and was released the summer of 1960.  Wilder was riding the zeitgeist with his look at post-war America, in the workplace and the bedroom. The Apartment makes a tart response to all the tease of 1959's Pillow Talk and all the sex comedies to come. While the game-changing Doris Day-Rock Hudson bedroom comedy has its pleasures, it presents a Hollywood-ized picture of mid-twentieth century sexual attitudes, palatable for the masses. Pillow Talk is all brightly lit, with pretty people, clothes, immaculate sets, merry music, along with fluffy dialogue and story. This is a stark contrast to The Apartment, with the sterile workplace, realistic characters, smoky bars, rainy streets, and the drab apartment. While Pillow Talk's dialogue has no consequences, The Apartment's pointed barbs cost reputations, jobs, marriages, and nearly a life.

The story is simple: C.C. “Bud” Baxter strives to ride the wave over the multitudes of other faceless workers through hard work AND pimping out his apartment for philandering higher-ups. At first, Baxter’s efforts pay off, but then the situation spins out of control.

Jack Lemmon supplies the booze and the laughs in 'The Apartment.'

Jack Lemmon is the perfect comic everyman as Baxter. He’s viewed as a schnook by his superiors, a heel by his neighbors and bland boyfriend material by his adored elevator operator. Lemmon’s persona was distilled to perfection with his work in The Apartment. Jack’s likeable but not afraid to be a jerk, his physical comedy bits are delightful, and his comic and dramatic timing with the great dialogue here are flawless.

Shirley MacLaine as Fran Kubelik, about to make some changes on New Year's Eve.

Shirley MacLaine can be over the top, but here, she is the model of restraint as Fran Kubelik. With Wilder and Diamond's wonderfully written role, MacLaine is warm, funny, and touching as the adorable young woman who’s stuck in her lot in life. I've read that Marilyn Monroe wished she had played Fran. No doubt that Marilyn would have been just as touching and funny. But the trope back then was that a sexy girl in Fran's situation would have been written as a good-hearted floozy. Fran is written not as a sexy tart with a heart, but just an ordinary girl, trapped by her circumstances. I think it was for the best that Fran was played by the appealing but approachable Shirley.

Fred MacMurray was awfully good at playing the heel, for someone who preferred playing nice guys!

Fred MacMurray was almost always cast as the good guy. It's notable that Billy Wilder got him to play the heel twice, in two of his best films, Double Indemnity and The Apartment. I'll preface this by saying Fred is one of my least favorite film actors. I find MacMurray, like Glenn Ford, competent at best, deadly dull at worst. As exec J.D. Sheldrake, it's disconcerting to see nice guy Fred playing such a hypocritical heel. Lucky for Fred, some of the best zingers in this film are between him and MacLaine. As the exec who is stringing working girl Fran along, his player rationales and her knowing responses still resonate in today's world. MacMurray is quite good here and it's notable that Fred got some flak from fans over playing such a role in this adult movie. After The Apartment, MacMurray embarked on a latter day career of Disney dads and the dad of My Three Sons.

Jack Kruschen is just great as the doc next door, who also prescribes sound advice.

Jack Kruschen plays a bracing character as the doc next door, who comes in handy at a crucial moment in the film. Dr. Dreyfuss is Baxter's conscience and has some memorable lines, and Kruschen plays him with no nonsense, but a big heart.

Ray Walston proves once again that he's best in small doses, as one of the self-centered co-workers, who are the apartment’s temporary occupants. Walston’s caricature comic snark is much more tolerable as an acting side dish than his wearing attempt as a Wilder film leading man, in ‘64’s Kiss Me, Stupid.

Edie Adams surprised me in a character role as the discarded secretary of exec Sheldrake.

Edie Adams has a snappy supporting role as Sheldrake's bitter secretary. Adams has some great lines and though it costs her character’s job, I enjoyed her engineering Fred's comeuppance. Johnny Seven—a name that would make Seinfeld’s George Costanza jealous—has a great cameo as Fran's irate cabdriver brother-in-law.

The Apartment’s supporting cast is stellar, down to bits by future TV faces: David White as a smarmy exec, later perfected as Larry Tate on Bewitched. Hal Miller as the drunk Santa is also in warm up mode, later he played drunk jailbird Otis on The Andy Griffith Show. And Joyce Jameson plays The Blonde, a tweak to memorable Wilder star Marilyn Monroe, and Jameson later played a similar role on The Andy Griffith Show.

For once, a movie ad that sums up the movie accurately!

I could fill this review with Wilder and Diamond's wonderfully witty and knowing lines—but watch this classic for yourselves and enjoy. Aside from the dialogue, the story is one of Wilder's sturdiest vehicles, a model of construction.

My only beef is that the two male leads are a bit old for their roles: a slightly jowly Lemmon was 35 when he played worker bee up-and-comer Baxter, and especially MacMurray, at 52, playing a married man of 12 years, with two young teen-age sons. And Fred was 26 years older than girlish MacLaine, twice her age. However, this is typical for Hollywood, and just a quibble. 

The Apartment has a view of life that could be viewed as an accurate time capsule, but frankly, is still timely. Success over happiness, sex and the workplace, ethical behavior versus getting ahead—it still resonates.

The look when MacMurray's married man tries to give girl on the side MacLaine's Fran
a C-note for Christmas is powerfully played.

Wittily directed, scripted, and performed, The Apartment reminds me of All about Eve. You can find something new just about every time you view these multi-layered classics. Or just enjoy the most memorable moments over and over. 

My friends Bruce and Gwyneth watch 'The Apartment' every New Year's Eve.
Perhaps they have pasta and play gin rummy, too?