Classic Movie Review: The Apartment (1960)

The Apartment (1960) 

Directed by: Billy Wilder.

Written by: Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond.

Starring: Jack Lemmon (C.C. 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). 

 

If I had to recommend a “classic” movie director to someone who was looking to start to get in older Hollywood movies and looking for a place to start, I think that director would be Billy Wilder – and The Apartment may well be the film I suggest they start with. It’s a testament to just how great Wilder is that The Apartment is probably not even his best film – that would be Sunset Blvd. (1950) or even his funniest – that would be Some Like It Hot (1959). And you can go down the line to many great films he made – Double Indemnity (1944), The Lost Weekend (1945), Ace in the Hole (1951), Stalag 17 (1953), Witness for the Prosecution (1957) and One, Two, Three (1961) – and even that list is missing some classics. His films don’t seem to age – you could change few details of The Apartment, and pretty much have a film you could set today, probably in some tech company in Northern California, and you wouldn’t have to change much else. This is a comedy – one of the best American comedies of all time – but it sticks with you because of the sense of loneliness and sadness that runs through the entire film. It’s anchored by two of the best performances by two legendary actors – Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine – and yes, it is a romantic comedy. But it’s a romantic comedy about two adults – realists in an imperfect world, and when the credits role, after the perfect closing line, you have no idea whether or not it will work out between them. But you want it to – they seem right for each other. And they take their time making that decision – with their heads, as much as with their hearts.

 

Lemmon plays C.C. Baxter, a cog in the machine of a massive insurance company. He’s good at his job and ambitious to boot – part of that ambition has led him to lend out his bachelor apartment to executives in the company, looking for place to take their mistresses before getting on the train at night and returning to their wives. Baxter has a crush of Fran Kubelik (MacLaine), the pretty elevator operator in the building – not knowing that she was once, and will be again, the mistress of the big boss – Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray) – who will eventually call on Baxter for use of that famous apartment.

 

So the famous Wilder cynicism is baked right into the concept of The Apartment. Neither Baxter nor Frank or naïve kids who fall head over heels in love. They are sad, lonely people. Wilder sets the film during Christmas, usually a cheerful time, but also chose to shoot it in black-and-white, which drains all those cheery lights and decorations of their color and sheer. Baxter has no family of any kind – at one point, he shares how he spent last Christmas day, and it’s downright pathetic. Fran does have a sister – she lives with her, and her brother-in-law, but that doesn’t stop the loneliness for sinking in. They are both “company men” in their way – and looking to climb the ladder in their own ways – him by getting promoted, her by marrying the boss. They both love Sheldrake in their own ways – and so much they cannot see what an asshole he is – perfectly played by MacMurray, as the type of guy who always gets what he wants, and seems offended when he doesn’t.

 

This was a key film for both Lemmon and MacLaine. Lemmon had already won an Oscar at this point – for his manic performance in Mister Roberts (1955), and had become a bigger star with his role in Wilder’s Some Like It Hot the year before. MacLaine had been doing comedies as well – and delivered a great, tragic turn in Vincente Minelli’s Some Came Running (1958) prior to The Apartment – which earned her the first Oscar nomination of her career. They are both brilliant here – both nominated for Oscars (Lemmon lost to Burt Lancaster, who finally won for Elmer Gantry, she to Elizabeth Taylor, who finally won for Butterfield 8) – but the roles propelled towards their future careers, where they would continue to be great. There is some shared DNA for Lemmon here between C.C. Baxter, and his last great performance – as Shelley Levine in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) – the once great salesman, now aging and incapable of closing. MacLaine would age into greater roles as well – she wouldn’t win an Oscar until Terms of Endearment (1983), not so much a similar character, except that it’s clear that both of these women had seen some things, been hurt, learned, and then kept going.

 

The key scenes in The Apartment as far as the romance goes are odd – in that they come in the wake of a Fran’s suicide attempt, in the apartment, that she doesn’t know is Baxter’s (she assumes Sheldrake will find her). They fall in love while she recuperates. And yet, they don’t fall into each other’s arms at the end – they actually both go back to Sheldrake for a while, needing one last kick in the teeth before they are ready for each other. Which brings you to one of the most perfect endings in cinema history. It’s the ending you want, the ending you feel you deserve, and its sweet and funny. But it also somehow manages to fit in as the perfect ending to this cynical, adult romantic comedy. How Wilder and company pulled it off is nothing short of a miracle.