The Apartment (Widescreen): Amazon.ca: DVD: DVD

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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

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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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The boss borrows his apartmwnt for a love tryst Jun 26 2004

By Joseph H Pierre

Format:VHS Tape

Director: Billy Wilder
Format: Black & White
Studio: Mgm/Ua Studios
Video Release Date: August 3, 1999

Cast:

Jack Lemmon ... Calvin Clifford 'C.C.' 'Bud' Baxter
Shirley MacLaine ... Fran Kubelik
Fred MacMurray ... Jeff D. Sheldrake
Ray Walston ... Joe Dobisch
Jack Kruschen ... Dr. Dreyfuss
David Lewis ... Al Kirkeby
Hope Holiday ... Mrs. Margie MacDougall
Joan Shawlee ... Sylvia
Naomi Stevens ... Mrs. Mildred Dreyfuss
Johnny Seven ... Karl Matuschka
Joyce Jameson ... The blonde
Willard Waterman ... Mr. Vanderhoff
David White ... Mr. Eichelberger
Edie Adams ... Miss Olsen
Mason Curry
David Macklin ... Messenger
Hal Smith ... Santa Claus
Benny Burt ... Charlie (the bartender)
Frances Weintraub Lax ... Mrs. Lieberman
Dorothy Abbott ... Office worker

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

author of Handguns and Freedom...their care and maintenance
and other books

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COMEDY AS IT SHOULD BE Aug 21 2002

By Boris Zubry

Format: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

They Should All be Like This July 6 2004

By J

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.