- Actors: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray, Ray Walston, Jack Kruschen
- Directors: Billy Wilder
- Writers: Billy Wilder, I.A.L. Diamond
- Producers: Billy Wilder, Doane Harrison, I.A.L. Diamond
- Format: NTSC
- Language: English
- Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
- Number of tapes: 1
- Run Time: 125 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (72 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B00004CI4N
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon.co.uk
Romance at its most anti-romantic--that is the Billy Wilder stamp of genius, and this Best Picture Academy Award winner from 1960 is no exception. Set in a decidedly unsavoury world of corporate climbing and philandering, the great filmmaker's trenchant, witty satire-melodrama takes the office politics of a corporation and plays them out in the apartment of lonely clerk CC Baxter (Jack Lemmon). By lending out his digs to the higher-ups for nightly extramarital flings with their secretaries, Baxter has managed to ascend the business ladder faster than even he imagined. The story turns even uglier, though, when Baxter's crush on the building's melancholy elevator operator (Shirley MacLaine) runs up against her long-standing affair with the big boss (a superbly smarmy Fred MacMurray). The situation comes to a head when she tries to commit suicide in Baxter's apartment. Not the happiest or cleanest of scenarios, and one that earned the famously caustic and cynically humoured Wilder his share of outraged responses, but looking at it now, it is a funny, startlingly clear-eyed vision of urban emptiness and is unfailingly understanding of the crazy decisions our hearts sometimes make. Lemmon and MacLaine are ideally matched and while everyone cites Wilder's Some Like It Hot closing line "Nobody's perfect" as his best, MacLaine's no-nonsense final words--"Shut up and deal"--are every bit as memorable. Wilder won three Oscars for The Apartment, for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay (cowritten with long-time collaborator I A L Diamond). --Robert Abele
Amazon.com essential video
Romance at its most anti-romantic--that is the Billy Wilder stamp of genius, and this Best Picture Academy Award winner from 1960 is no exception. Set in a decidedly unsavory world of corporate climbing and philandering, the great filmmaker's trenchant, witty satire-melodrama takes the office politics of a corporation and plays them out in the apartment of lonely clerk C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon). By lending out his digs to the higher-ups for nightly extramarital flings with their secretaries, Baxter has managed to ascend the business ladder faster than even he imagined. The story turns even uglier, though, when Baxter's crush on the building's melancholy elevator operator (Shirley MacLaine) runs up against her long-standing affair with the big boss (a superbly smarmy Fred MacMurray). The situation comes to a head when she tries to commit suicide in Baxter's apartment. Not the happiest or cleanest of scenarios, and one that earned the famously caustic and cynically humored Wilder his share of outraged responses, but looking at it now, it is a funny, startlingly clear-eyed vision of urban emptiness and is unfailingly understanding of the crazy decisions our hearts sometimes make. Lemmon and MacLaine are ideally matched, and while everyone cites Wilder's Some Like It Hot closing line "Nobody's perfect" as his best, MacLaine's no-nonsense final words--"Shut up and deal"--are every bit as memorable. Wilder won three Oscars for The Apartment, for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay (cowritten with longtime collaborator I.A.L. Diamond). --Robert Abele
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
The boss borrows his apartmwnt for a love tryst,
By
This review is from: Apartment (VHS Tape)
Cast: Jack Lemmon ... Calvin Clifford 'C.C.' 'Bud' Baxter C.C. 'Buddy Boy' Baxter (Jack Lemmon) has a downwtown apartment near his work where he is an insurance analyst in a large firm. He is ambitious to work is way up the ladder, and so loans his apartment out to various of his supperiors for their trysts in an effort to win their favors, which means that he is forced ro work overtime and stay out late while his apartment os occupied. Fran Kubelik (Shirley McLaine), elevator girl, is in love with big boss and branch manager Jeff D. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray), who is a married, cheating philanderer with a long history of conquests among the female staff. C.C. Baxter is also in love with Fran, who is having an affair with Sheldrake in his apartment. This is not really a comedy, although it has its funny moments. It is a good story which comes out all right in the end. Joseph (Joe) Pierre
5.0 out of 5 stars
COMEDY AS IT SHOULD BE,
By
This review is from: The Apartment (Widescreen) (DVD)
The black and white comedies of 50's and 60's became quite famous for the screen plays, filming and acting. And this one is above of many of them.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
They Should All be Like This,
By
This review is from: The Apartment (Widescreen) (DVD)
Wouldn't it be great if all movies were this good? This funny? This wise? This clever? This heartfelt? This true? My favorite Jack Lemmon movie. He plays a perfect schmuck who discovers himself. My favorite Shirley MacLaine movie. She plays a sweet but wounded modern girl who wises up. My favorite Billy Wilder movie. A perfect ear for dialogue and eye for mannerisms in his adopted country. Fred McMurray turns in a perfect performance as a shameless cad. No reason not to own this on dvd.
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