The Dean of Cinema

Written by Dean Zarbaugh II

Bud Baxter is a minor clerk in a huge New York insurance company, until he discovers a quick way to climb the corporate ladder. He lends out his apartment to the executives as a place to take their mistresses. Although he often has to deal with the aftermath of their visits, one night he’s left with a major problem to solve.

I’ve mentioned my love of filmmaker Billy Wilder many times before. He had one of the greatest careers of any director, ever. Sunset Blvd., Some Like It Hot, Double Indemnity, Sabrina, Ace In The Hole, Stalag 17, the list goes on. One of his greatest achievements is the 1960 film The Apartment. The film stars Jack Lemmon as the resident of the titular apartment which he lends out to his bosses in order to let them sneak around on their wives in privacy, Shirley MacLaine as Fran Kubelik, one of the elevator girls that works in Baxter’s building, and Fred MacMurray as Jeff Sheldrake, Baxter’s boss, who wants his apartment to sneak around with Fran. The only problem? Baxter is infatuated with Fran as well. Drama and hijinks ensue. The film won FIVE Academy Awards at the 1961 ceremony including Best Picture!

Wilder’s script is one of his best. It’s filled with comedy, drama, romance and suspense. What more could you ask for in a film? The script has many twists and turns and right when you think you know how it’s all going to play out, another rug gets pulled from under you. It keeps you guessing until the very last frame. In my opinion, The Apartment is one of the best screenplays ever written. The dialogue is real, and has that snappy 1960s cadence to it. It deals with a lot of heavy subjects like extramarital affairs and even suicide, which simply wasn’t talked about on screen in movies very often. Wilder deals with the subjects with class and heart. The act isn’t played for laughs, and reveals the struggles our protagonists are dealing with. The script won the Academy Award for Best Screenplay at the 1961 Academy Awards, also Wilder’s second win after nabbing Best Adapted Screenplay for The Lost Weekend. Wilder’s writing is sharp, poignant, and authentic. He doesn’t pull his punches at all.

“Some people take. Others get took.” That’s one of the biggest themes of The Apartment. On one end, Baxter’s bosses continue to take and take and take from Baxter despite his clear objections and boundaries, and then there’s Baxter, who allows himself to continue getting steamrolled by them by tricking himself into thinking he’ll be taken care of in the end. The problem is, the end never comes. Just when Baxter thought he was out, the apartment pulls him back in when Mr. Sheldrake dangles a nice carrot in front of Baxter’s face: a promotion. What would you be willing to do for a nice promotion with a raise and better career opportunities? Would you let your bosses bring their trysts into your home? No thank you. I barely like interacting with bosses at work, I need a buffer zone between me and them. Baxter struggles with putting his foot down and ending the apartment situation. If he does, he can kiss his job goodbye. When he finds out who Mr. Sheldrake has been taking to the apartment, it changes Baxter’s entire view on life.

It deals with the workplace harassment that women in the 50’s, 60’s, and sadly, even today deal with on a daily basis. Wilder doesn’t pull his punches about this either. It’s not a laughing matter, and is played straight. Women in general are more or less presented as loyal housewives, harebrained sex objects, bitter shrews because that’s how Baxter’s bosses view them. Baxter is the lone mensch in this regard, treating women, especially Ms. Kubelik. When one of his philandering bosses makes a comment about Ms. Kubelik turning down all of his advances, Baxter replies, “could be she’s just a nice, respectable girl — there are millions of them,” at which his boss scoffs and calls him “Little Lord Fauntleroy!” Sadly, there are still a number of men who view women as Baxter’s bosses do, and it’s high time we moved on from such Neanderthal thinking.

Every character in The Apartment is wearing a mask, leading a double life. Baxter is on the straight and narrow, but to everyone in his building, he’s an alcoholic and hard partying bachelor with a new woman every night. Sheldrake as a family man and philanderer, Fran Kubelik is an independent career woman, standing up to the sleazeballs she works with every day, while also falling for the head sleazeball. All of the actors nail juggling their different personas based on who they are interacting with in that moment.

The film looks gorgeous. It’s one of the most beautiful black and white films ever lensed. Kino Lorber’s 4K restoration is a thing of beauty. The amount of detail in every frame is astonishing. Incredible transfer from Kino. Right off the rip, it grabs your attention and doesn’t let it go. I love how lonely and isolated the composition and blocking makes Baxter look in the first act. The shot of him at work, alone, in the center of the room, or the one of him sleeping on the bench after getting kicked out of his apartment by one of his bosses. There’s tons of empty space in these shots, emphasizing how alone Baxter feels. Wilder’s collaboration with production designer Alexandre Trauner gives the 19th floor of the insurance company a massive scale, making it seem like the office never ends. It’s beautiful and haunting in how small one like Baxter is in comparison.

The big reveal shot of Baxter’s face in Fran’s broken mirror is pure visual poetry. The film is filled with shots like that one, that tell the story without words. I love Baxter and Kubelik’s exchange in this scene:

*Chef’s kiss*

Wilder was a master at visuals like that and his teamwork with cinematographer Joseph LaShelle is one of the best collaborations in cinema. The Apartment won Wilder Best Director at the 1961 Academy Awards, his second in the category after winning for The Lost Weekend.

Jack Lemmon puts on a masterclass in acting as C.C. Baxter, the guy getting took by all his bosses. He has that trademark Jack Lemmon charm, mixed with an undercurrent of bitterness and exasperation. Burt Lancaster walked away with the trophy that year, but Lemmon’s performance is much more memorable in my opinion. The way he is able to go from happy go lucky to down and out at the drop of a hat is impeccable. I love the scene where he’s drunkenly dancing with some random lady he picks up on Christmas Eve. The way he moves his body doesn’t look like it, but takes a lot of practice and coordination in order to come off as genuine as it does here. It’s almost a ballet he performs, swaying incoherently to the music. He quickly sobers up when he gets home to discover Fran next to a bottle of sleeping pills. Lemmon makes that change on a dime. The chemistry between him and Shirley MacLaine is off the charts and you can’t help but root for things to work out between them. The banter between them at the end is perfection.

Shirley MacLaine is unmistakably the perfect fit for the role of the woman every man finds themselves fawning over. She is sharp, witty, and funny. She has the number on every guy in the building, and is sure to keep them at arm’s length. Except for that one: Mr. Sheldrake. Foolishly, and uncharacteristically, Fran finds herself believing Sheldrake’s song and dance about leaving his wife for her. She’s a strong woman who immediately and loudly calls out her abusers when they touch her, and even goes so far as to threaten to cut one of their hands off with the doors one day. It’s this strength that makes it so frustrating to watch as she succumbs to Sheldrake’s charm and web of lies. MacLaine plays both versions with poise and class.

Thanks to my love of Disney, in addition to cable television, I was familiar with Fred MacMurray from a slew of Disney films, and as the dad in the sitcom My Three Sons, so it was shocking for me to see him break bad as the two timing corporate executive in The Apartment. I hadn’t seen Wilder and MacMurray’s Double Indemnity before, so this was my first time seeing him play opposite of his usual fare. He was the perfect choice for the slimy, lying, cheating, no good Mr. Sheldrake. He nails that 50s-60s cheating husband promising to leave his wife vibe. At home, Sheldrake seems like the usual MacMurray character: loving husband and devoted father. At work, the real Sheldrake emerges, where women are an item to chase after.

The Apartment is not only in my top 50 films of all time, it’s flat out one of the best films ever made and deserves to be seen by everyone who loves cinema. You’ll laugh, cry, and cheer. Billy Wilder deserves much more recognition in modern cinema. He doesn’t get talked about with the same passion as Spielberg, Scorsese, Hitchcock, or Kubrick. Wilder’s career is one of the most diverse, oscillating between film noirs like Double Indemnity and Sunset Blvd to dramatic comedies like The Apartment and Some Like It Hot, and knocking all of them out of the park. He was able to slot into any production and make it one of the most memorable of all time. Without him, a lot of films wouldn’t exist today. He showed filmmakers what was possible if you’re armed with a good story, great actors and a wonderful crew.

GRADE: A+