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Title: The Apartment (1960)
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| Complete credited cast: | |||
| 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 | |
As of November 1, 1959, mild mannered C.C. Baxter has been working at Consolidated Life, an insurance company, for close to four years, and is one of close to thirty-two thousand employees located in their Manhattan head office. To distinguish himself from all the other lowly cogs in the company in the hopes of moving up the corporate ladder, he often works late, but only because he can't get into his apartment, located off of Central Park West, since he has provided it to a handful of company executives - Mssrs. Dobisch, Kirkeby, Vanderhoff and Eichelberger - on a rotating basis for their extramarital liaisons in return for a good word to the personnel director, Jeff D. Sheldrake. When Baxter is called into Sheldrake's office for the first time, he learns that it isn't just to be promoted as he expects, but also to add married Sheldrake to the list to who he will lend his apartment. What Baxter is unaware of is that Sheldrake's mistress is Fran Kubelik, an elevator girl in the ... Written by Huggo
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Jack Lemmon is the man.
The Apartment really surprised me. The Best Picture winner starts off right in the middle of the action, but yet the first hour seems long and overrun. Too much time seems spent in trying to develop the characters (and oh so many of them) and not enough time is spent on just seeing what will happen. Just when I was about to lose faith, the film picks it up like I have never seen before. The whole sub-plot of the four guys wanting to use Lemmon's apartment for their evening tyrsts is dropped and Wilder smartly concentrates on Lemmon, MacLaine and MacMurray and the film creates true magic.
The Apartment is more of a drama than a comedy and balances the two elements perfectly. Just after one of the more dramatic moments of the film, we see Lemmon straining his pasta with a tennis racquet. The use of the doctor and his wife in supporting roles are completely there for comedy and yet add so much to the film. The ending also rates up there with the best of all time using an old device that doesn't seem at all cliched in this film. Some say that "Some like it hot" was Wilder's best, but now I have to disagree. The Apartment is better and surely would have made my top ten had the first hour not been so predictable.
How Jack Lemmon didn't win Best Actor is beyond me. His is a great performance, getting to act on more than one scale. MacMurray, another Wilder favourite is perfectly cast in the role of a family-wrecker. I wish they would have put a scene in which his wife confronts him with "The News". MacLaine glows on the screen even when she is sick and in bed.
I fully recommend this film to all, it being Wilder's best makes it a must see.
8/10 stars.