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Click above to purchase "The Apartment" at amazon.com
The Apartment
review by Anthony D.
Rated R
Studio: MGM
Running Time: 125 minutes
Starring Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred
MacMurray
Written by I.A.L. Diamond and Billy Wilder
Directed by Billy Wilder
Retail Price: $19.98
Features: Theatrical Trailer
Specs: 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen, English Mono,
French Mono, Spanish Mono, English Closed Captions, French
Subtitles, Spanish Subtitles, Chapter Search
It is a truly great director who can carefully construct
a perfect blend of comedy and drama. It is truly a cinematic
marvel to have such a film withstand the mores of forty
years and still work. If the combined talents of director
Billy Wilder, actor Jack Lemmon and actress Shirley MacLaine
had never made "The Apartment," then the world of cinema
would be at a loss to find a more perfect picture.
Wilder's follow-up to his censor-baiting "Some Like it
Hot," with his star from that film, was 1960's "The
Apartment." Lemmon would work often with Wilder, serving as
much as an "Everyman" figure as James Stewart did to
Hitchock and Johnny Depp more recently has done for Tim
Burton; but it is his performance as C.C."Bud" Baxter that
cemented te actor/director relationship. You see, C.C., is
an up and coming young businessman, whose bachelorhood works
in his constant favor to the married men in his firm. When
you have a bachelor's apartment, and no history of dating,
you can loan out your apartment's key to upper executives to
use for their own afternoon and evening extramarital trysts
and rendevous. When you loan said apartment key to the "BIG
BOSS," you can guarantee yourself a major promotion. With
that major promotion, you can almost guarantee yourself, the
girl of your dreams: a fetching young girl named Fran
Kubelik, whose love life has more ups and downs than the
elevator she happens to operate. BUT when the girl of your
dreams is having an illicit affair with your "BIG BOSS,"
well, your life can really suck - - promotion and all! When
your three top-billed actors are the afore-mentioned
MacLaine and Lemmon (as C.C. and Fran) as well as the
multi-talented Fred MacMurray as BIG BOSS J.D. Sheldrake,
then you get Wilder's delightful and touching Academy Award
winning Best Picture "The Apartment."
With actors of that caliber working under the steady hand
of Billy Wilder, who also wrote the screenplay with his
partner I. A .L. Diamond, you can expect to have characters
you can care for, whether what they are doing is morally
"correct" or not. One of the pleasures of "The Apartment" is
that it doesn't judge these characters...they exist just as
they are - - love 'em, or leave 'em. Lemmon getting the
drift of MacMurray's enticing promotional speech, while
suffering from a case of the sniffles; MacLaine raiding "The
Apartment's" medicine cabinet for a full-throttle suicide
attempt; Lemmon and MacLaine's spaghetti dinner strained
through a tennis racket are only a few scenes which stand
out in the film's over two hour running time. The film feels
far shorter than it really is, thanks to the brilliant
pacing that whooshes from the apartment to the office to a
bench in Central Park to the lobby of a theater as if
carried on a magic carpet.
"The Apartment" deserves every accolade it has been
afforded. Five Academy Awards in a tight Oscar race is a
commendable acheivement, though I wish in addition that
Lemmon and MacLaine had been afforded a statuette for their
work here - - it would take a while before either of them
won a "leading" category, Lemmon for 1973's "Save the Tiger"
and MacLaine for 1983's "Terms of Endearment."
Even the smallest roles are made unforgettable by the
likes of Edie Adams (a spurned secretary), Ray Walston and
David Lewis (C.C.'s co-workers), Oscar-nominated Jack
Kruschen (as a life-saving neighbor) as well as Wilder
stalwart Joan Shawlee.
"The Apartment" is a remarkable film as it treads
delicately between drama and comedy. The laughs that come
are not guffaws, but laughs of recognition at the plight of
humans and their foibles. The drama is as believable as it
can be (granted, most BIG BOSSES nowadays have their own
little hideaways for their affairs) given today's standards.
If you haven't seen "The Apartment," don't hesitate any
longer, MGM has made it available in a bare-bones package
(read on for the details) that should fit into anyone's
budgetary restraints.
Presented in a nifty, anamorphic transfer, "The
Apartment" has a very good print to offer. The luminescent
of the fluorescent lighting in the incredibly deep office
scenes (shot on a medium sized stage) occasionally glimmers,
with no other unreasonable problems. The wide Panavision
canvas is well served with deep blacks and a multitude of
hues on the gray scale. The Academy Award nominated black
and white cinematography is preserved in a near to pristine
state, and thankfully the winning Art Direction/Set
Decoration is as beautiful today as it was in 1960. Take a
gander at the details of the title's dwelling-place and all
of the character it has been given through the set's
decorations. "The Apartment" couldn't possibly be a better
film, and to ask for a better transfer would be pointless,
considering the film's age. There are no artifacts or
distracting signs of age to be found, and edge enhancement
is negligible.
"Bonjour, Mme. Kubelik!" "Buenos Dias, Senorita Kubelik!"
are only two of the ways in which the viewer can hear Jack
Lemmon greet Shirley MacLaine. In addition to the French and
Spanish mono tracks, "The Apartment" boasts its original
English mono track. Non-admirers of Shirley MacLaine may
find the track to be harsher than usual, but Shirley rarely
screeches her way through this role. Otherwise, it is a
standard, well-centered audio presentation.
Okay, "The Apartment" is a seminal film in the career of
Billy Wilder, garnering him the Academy Award for Best
Director, not to mention another Oscar for his Original
Screenplay, so what does MGM do to celebrate this celebrated
film? NADA! Zip! Except for the Original Theatrical Trailer
(which contains the film's final bittersweet ending!)
there's nothing at all, which is a lowdown dirty shame.
What could have been a very seedy, even smarmy tale,
becomes a classic love story in the capable hands of Billy
Wilder. Think about what "The Apartment" is really about: a
man who has to sleep in the bed of forbidden lovers! That is
the character of C. C. Baxter, who in the hands of a lesser
actor than Lemmon, could be a self-pitiful mensch, rather
than the lovable character that he becomes. Without that
likable central figure, "The Apartment" could never have
become the hit 1970's Broadway musical "Promises, Promises."
That particular Bacharach & David musical is very
faithful to Wilde's screenplay, and in addition to
restarting Jerry ("Law and Order") Orbach's stage career,
successfully launched the London career of Betty ("Carrie"
"Tender Mercies") Buckley prior to her long-running stint on
television's "Eight is Enough," not to mention the career of
choreographer/director Michael Bennett, who used the friends
he made in the show's ensemble as the archetypes for his own
ground-breaking musical "A Chorus Line." Yes, and "Promises,
Promises" gave us that wonderful standard "I'll Never Fall
in Love Again!" That is quite a legacy for one film to leave
behind, and although MGM has presented a no-frills product,
one wishes that MGM could have come up with a "Special
Edition" befitting Billy Wilder's "The Apartment." It is
only because "The Apartment" rates so highly as a film that
I begrudgingly grant the overall rating of "4," at MGM's
budget price, there's no reason at all to rent "The
Apartment" when you can take out a lifetime lease for less
than twenty bucks!
 (5/5 - NOT included in
final score)
 (3/5)
(3/5)
 (.5/5)
 (4/5,
NOT an average)
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