Reel Classics: “The Apartment” (1960)

Billy Wilder was a very suc­cess­ful screen­writer and direc­tor in Hollywood.  His films include many clas­sics—Double Indemnity (1944), Sunset Boulevard (1950), Witness For The Prosecution (1957) and Some Like It Hot (1959) to name a few.  Today’s Reel Classic also appears in that list of Wilder’s successes. 

The Apartment, released in 1960, starred Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray in a roman­tic com­e­dy with a seri­ous com­men­tary.  As stat­ed in the review on the TCM (Turner Classic Movies) site:  “Wilder walks the tightrope between humor and tragedy and cre­ates sym­pa­thy for his moral­ly ambigu­ous char­ac­ters in a way very few film­mak­ers could pull off.”

So, who are these “moral­ly ambigu­ous char­ac­ters?”  C.C. “Bud” Baxter (Jack Lemmon) is an office work­er in a huge insur­ance com­pa­ny in New York City.  His ambi­tion is to climb the lad­der in the com­pa­ny and secure a high­er posi­tion.  One way he has found to secure the sup­port of his super­vi­sors is to allow them the use of his apart­ment to car­ry on extra­mar­i­tal affairs.  He is jug­gling the sched­ules of four of his man­agers.  There is so much “com­ing and going” in his apart­ment that his neigh­bors, think­ing it is Baxter enter­tain­ing all these women, believe him to be a playboy. 

Hearing all the pos­i­tive com­ments about Baxter from the man­agers, the per­son­nel direc­tor, Jeff Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray), fig­ures out what is going on and decides to take advan­tage as well.  He promis­es Baxter a pro­mo­tion if Sheldrake can uti­lize the apart­ment for his own extra­mar­i­tal affair.  Baxter is agree­able and in return Sheldrake gives him two tick­ets to a Broadway show. 

Baxter does have a crush on the build­ing’s ele­va­tor oper­a­tor Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), and asks her out to the show.  She informs him that she has a date that evening but will meet him before the show.  What Baxter does­n’t know is that the date Fran has is with Sheldrake.  We learn that she had been see­ing Sheldrake in the past but decid­ed to stop.  He has told her that he plans to divorce his wife to be with her and they head for Baxter’s apart­ment leav­ing Baxter wait­ing for her. 

Fran even­tu­al­ly learns from an employ­ee of the insur­ance com­pa­ny that Sheldrake has had mul­ti­ple affairs and strug­gles with that knowl­edge.  Baxter also learns that Sheldrake has been see­ing Fran in his apart­ment.  Both are tremen­dous­ly impact­ed by their new­found knowl­edge.  As the sto­ry plays out we see Baxter and Fran cope with their feel­ings and dis­cov­er each oth­er as part of the heal­ing process.  As usu­al, no spoilers. 

Now, I can almost hear you say­ing “I thought this was a roman­tic com­e­dy!”  Well, it is, but remem­ber the quote above from TCM about how Wilder walked the tightrope between com­e­dy and tragedy.  There are laughs and smiles through­out the film but it has its share of seri­ous moments as well.  This is not your 1930s screw­ball comedy.

The role of Fred Sheldrake was not the kind of role that most peo­ple think of when they think of actor Fred MacMurray.  Most remem­ber him as the father in the pop­u­lar tele­vi­sion series My Three Sons, or per­haps from his var­i­ous Disney movies roles (The Absent Minded Professor, The Shaggy Dog and Son Of Flubber).  He had worked with Billy Wilder pre­vi­ous­ly in the film noir clas­sic Double Indemnity along with Barbara Stanwyck and Edward G. Robinson. 

He hes­i­tat­ed at first in tak­ing this role, as it was dif­fer­ent from those he had been play­ing at the time.  However, his past work expe­ri­ence with Wilder led him to accept it.  As it turned out, he paid a price for choos­ing to do so.  Fan mail for MacMurray after the release of The Apartment was very crit­i­cal of him.  Fans did not like see­ing the friend­ly, easy going actor they had grown accus­tomed to play such a “moral­ly cor­rupt” char­ac­ter.  MacMurray described an inci­dent where he was berat­ed by a woman on the street for mak­ing a “dirty, filthy movie” and she struck him with her purse.  She told him she had brought her six year old son to see the movie, think­ing it was anoth­er Disney film.  He was so tak­en aback by the respons­es that he said he would nev­er take on a sim­i­lar role again. 

Interestingly, Fred MacMurray was not the ini­tial choice for the role of Sheldrake.  Paul Douglas had been cast in the role.  However, he died from a heart attack in New York pri­or to fly­ing to Hollywood.  Another inter­est­ing note regard­ing cast­ing is that the stu­dio want­ed Groucho Marx to play the role of Baxter’s neigh­bor, Dr. Dreyfuss.  Billy Wilder nixed that as he want­ed an actor with a more dra­mat­ic flair.  Jack Kruschen was cho­sen and received an Oscar nom­i­na­tion for his efforts.

Other famil­iar faces in the cast include Ray Walston and Hal Smith.  You may not know him by his name, but you would like­ly rec­og­nize the face of Hal Smith.  In The Apartment, Smith is seen as the drunk­en Santa Claus in a bar scene.  You will know him as the drunk­en Otis Campbell from The Andy Griffith Show.  

The film received ten Oscar nom­i­na­tions and won five, includ­ing Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay.  Billy Wilder became the first per­son ever to win an Oscar for all three cat­e­gories.  Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine also received nom­i­na­tions for their roles. 

The sub­ject mat­ter of the film cre­at­ed some dis­agree­ment when it came to the crit­ics’ reviews.  Time and Newsweek both praised the film as did the crit­ic for The New York Times who described it as “glee­ful, ten­der, and even sen­ti­men­tal” while prais­ing Wilder’s direc­tion as “inge­nious.”  However, the crit­ic for Esquire described it as “a par­a­digm of corny avant­gardism” and the Saturday Review described it as “a dirty fairy tale.”

Jack Lemmon addressed the sub­ject mat­ter of the film and Wilder’s efforts.  He stat­ed “ I always felt that Billy Wilder grew a rose in a garbage pail with this one.  He was throw­ing cold water right in our faces about the ter­ri­ble false premis­es with which most of our soci­ety lives.  He chal­lenged our pri­or­i­ties and the way we ratio­nal­ize our behav­ior on the grounds of get­ting ahead in America—at a time when it was­n’t fash­ion­able to chal­lenge these things.” 

Lemmon also said of his char­ac­ter:  “As I saw it [Baxter] was ambi­tious;  a nice guy but gullible, eas­i­ly intim­i­dat­ed, and fast to excuse his behav­ior.  In the end, he changes because he faces up to hav­ing ratio­nal­ized his morals.  He real­izes he’s been a dumb kid, he’s been had.” 

In 2001 Roger Ebert  gave the film four of four stars and added it to his list of “Great Movies.”  Rotten Tomatoes Critics Consensus states “Director Billy Wilder’s cus­tom­ary cyn­i­cism is leav­ened here by ten­der humor, romance, and gen­uine pathos.” The American Film Institute has also includ­ed The Apartment on it’s list of “Greatest American Movies of All Time,” “Top 100 Funniest American Movies,” and “America’s Greatest Love Stories.” 

In 1968 Neil Simon adapt­ed the screen­play for Broadway as a musi­cal titled “Promises, Promises.”  It ran for 1,281 per­for­mances and includ­ed the Burt Bacharach and Hal David song “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again,”  made pop­u­lar by Dionne Warwick. 

The Internet Movie Database gives The Apartment a score of 8.3 of 10.  Rotten Tomatoes Critics Score is 93% and the Audience Score is 94%.

In search­ing my Roku device I found the film avail­able for free on sev­er­al sites includ­ing Tubi, Kanopy, Hoopla and PlutoTV.  (Kanopy and Hoopla are avail­able with your library card).  There is also a copy of the film on DVD on the shelf at the Clark County Public Library.

I will leave you with the valu­able advice offered to Baxter by his con­cerned neigh­bor Dr. Dreyfuss:  “Be a men­sch!” (a Jewish term mean­ing a per­son of integri­ty and hon­or).  Good advice for us all.

Information for this Reel Classic review was gath­ered from Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Wikipedia.

I’ll be back soon with the next Reel Classic, but before I leave you with the trail­er below let me remind you that if you enjoy these clas­sic movies please join me on the sec­ond Tuesday of each month at 6 PM at the Clark County Public Library for “Ron Kibbey’s Comedy Classics.”  I present a clas­sic com­e­dy film usu­al­ly accom­pa­nied by a vin­tage car­toon.  Popcorn and drinks are pro­vid­ed.  More infor­ma­tion about the next film is avail­able on the library’s web­site and Facebook page, as well as WinCity Voices Facebook page.