The Apartment (1960) ft. Christine Duncan

Guest:

• Christine Duncan - Wife of Dana and Mother of Tom

  • 15x guest: Pretty Woman, Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally, There's Something About Mary, My Fair Lady, Pillow Talk, The Odd Couple, Bringing Up Baby, A Few Good Men - Revisit, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Top Gun, Dial M for Murder, Anatomy of a Murder, Gone Girl, Roman Holiday Revisit

Cast:

• Billy Wilder, Writer/Director

• IAL Diamond, Co-Writer

• Joseph LaShelle, Cinematography

• Adolph Deutsch, Music

• Jack Lemmon as Calvin Clifford (CC) "Bud" Baxter

• Shirley MacLaine as Fran Kubelik

• Fred MacMurray as Jeff D. Sheldrake

• Ray Walston as Joe Dobisch

• Jack Kruschen as Dr. David Dreyfuss

• Frances Weintraub Lax as landlady Mrs. Lieberman

• David Lewis as Al Kirkeby

• Edie Adams as Miss Olsen

Background:

• The Apartment was released on June 15 and June 21, 1960.

• On a rough budget of $3 million, The Apartment is said to have grossed $24.6 million worldwide to finish #8 domestically and #5 worldwide for the year 1960.

• Critics were mostly positive at the time, and The Apartment would be nominated for 10 Oscars including Best Actor (Lemmon), Actress (MacLaine), Supporting Actor (Jack Kruschen), Black and White Cinematography, and Sound. The Apartment won the Oscars for Best Picture, Director (Wilder), Original Screenplay, Art Direction, and Film Editing (*it was the last black and white Best Picture winner until Schindler's List (1993))

• In 2002, a poll of film directors conducted by Sight and Sound magazine listed the film as the 14th greatest film of all time (tied with La Dolce Vita).

• In the 2012 poll by Sight and Sound directors voted the film 44th greatest of all time.

• The film was included in "The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made" in 2002.

• In 2006, Premiere voted this film as one of "The 50 Greatest Comedies Of All Time". The Writers Guild of America ranked the film's screenplay (written by Billy Wilder & I.A.L. Diamond.) the 15th greatest ever.

• In 2015, The Apartment ranked 24th on BBC's "100 Greatest American Films" list, voted on by film critics from around the world. The film was selected as the 27th best comedy of all time in a poll of 253 film critics from 52 countries conducted by the BBC in 2017.

• American Film Institute lists:

  • AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (#93)

  • AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs (#20)

  • AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions (#62)

  • AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) (#80)

• In 1994, it was one of 25 films selected for inclusion in the Library of Congress National Film Registry.

• The Apartment currently holds a 93% among critics on RT, a 94 score on Metacritic, and a 4.4/5 on Letterboxd.

Plot Summary: C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon), an ambitious office clerk in a Manhattan insurance firm, lends his apartment to philandering executives in hopes of climbing the corporate ladder. His plan hits a moral snag when he discovers that Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), the elevator operator he’s fallen for, is having an affair with his boss, Jeff Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray). As Baxter wrestles with loyalty, loneliness, and love, he must decide whether success is worth sacrificing integrity and happiness. A poignant blend of sharp satire and heartfelt romance, The Apartment is a bittersweet portrait of ambition and redemption in the big city.

Did You Know:

• Billy Wilder gave Jack Lemmon free rein to fill in the character of C.C. "Bud" Baxter in performance. He compared the actor favorably to Charles Chaplin and thought he could do no wrong.

• To create the effect of a vast sea of faces laboring grimly and impersonally at their desks in the huge insurance company office, designers Alexandre Trauner and Edward G. Boyle devised an interesting technique. Full-sized actors sat at the desks in the front and children dressed in suits were used at tiny desks toward the rear, followed by even smaller desks with cut-out figures operated by wires. It gave the effect of a much larger space than could have been achieved in the limited studio space.

• For this film, Billy Wilder became the first person to win the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. (Original Screenplay: Woody Allen for Annie Hall, Sean Baker for Anora, Bong Joon-Ho for Parasite, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for Everything, Everywhere All at Once; Adapted Screenplay: Joseph Mankiewicz for All About Eve, Francis Ford Coppola for the Godfather Part 2, Richard Benton for Kramer v. Kramer, James L. Brooks for Terms of Endearment, The Coen Brother for No Country for Old Men)

• Jack Lemmon said he learned much about filmmaking from Billy Wilder, particularly the director's use of "hooks," bits of business the audience remembers long after they've forgotten other aspects of the movie. One such hook was the passing of the key to Baxter's apartment. Lemmon said for years after the picture's release, people would come up to him and say, "Hey, Jack, can I have the key?"

• In the scene where Karl punches Baxter, Jack Lemmon was supposed to mime being punched. He failed to move correctly and was accidentally knocked down. Billy Wilder chose to use the shot of the genuine punch in the film.

• The film was lauded by Soviet-bloc critics as an indictment of the American system and a story that could only have happened in a capitalistic city like New York. At a dinner honoring him in East Berlin, Billy Wilder said the movie "could happen anywhere, in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Rome, Paris, London." When Wilder said the one place it could not have happened was Moscow, the East Germans broke into thunderous applause and cheers. When the ovation died down, Wilder continued: "The reason this picture could not have taken place in Moscow is that in Moscow nobody has his own apartment." The remark was met with grim silence.

Best Performance: Billy Wilder (Writer/Director)/Jack Lemmon (Baxter)

Best Secondary Performance: Jack Lemmon (Baxter)/Shirley MacLaine (Kubelik)

Most Charismatic Award: Jack Kruschen (Dreyfuss)/Fred MacMurray (Sheldrake)/Jack Lemmon (Baxter)

Best Scene:

• Cold Open

• Meeting Sheldrake

• Christmas Party

• Sleeping Pills

• Making Dinner

• Matushka

• Wash Room Key

Favorite Scene: Matushka/Donating Body/Cold Open

Most Indelible Moment: Sleeping Pills/Wash Room Key

In Memorium:

• Clifton Jones, 87, Jamaican-British actor (Space: 1999, Watership Down, China Moon)

• Betsy Gay, 96, American actress (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Our Gang Follies of 1938)

• Anne Burrell, 55, American chef and TV host (Secrets of a Restaurant Chef, Worst Cooks in America, Iron Chef America)

• David Hekili Kenui Bell, 46, American actor (Lilo and Stitch (live-action), Hawaii Five-O, and Magnum P.I.)

Best Lines/Funniest Lines:

C.C. Baxter: The mirror... it's broken.

Fran Kubelik: Yes, I know. I like it that way. Makes me look the way I feel.

C.C. Baxter: Ya know, I used to live like Robinson Crusoe; I mean, shipwrecked among 8 million people. And then one day I saw a footprint in the sand, and there you were.

C.C. Baxter: My sleigh is double-parked.

C.C. Baxter: That's the way it crumbles... cookie-wise.

Fran Kubelik: He's a taker.

C.C. Baxter: A what?

Fran Kubelik: Some people take, some people get took. And they know they're getting took and there's nothing they can do about it.

Dr. Dreyfuss: I don't want to gloat, but, just between us, you had it coming to you. [leaves apartment] You're going to have a shiner tomorrow!

C.C. Baxter: Don't bother, Doc. Doesn't hurt a bit.

Fran Kubelik: When you're in love with a married man, you shouldn't wear mascara.

Fran Kubelik: Why do people have to love people anyway?

Fran Kubelik: [indicating elevator] I shouldn't drink when I'm driving.

C.C. Baxter: You're so right. [He reaches into the elevator, takes a cardboard sign off a

hook, hangs it on the elevator door. It reads USE OTHER

ELEVATOR.]

C.C. Baxter: By the power vested in me, I herewith declare this elevator out of order. (leading her toward the party) Shall we join the natives?

Fran Kubelik: Why not? [as they pass a kissing couple] They seem friendly enough.

C.C. Baxter: Don't you believe it. Later onthere will be human sacrifices --white collar workers tossed intothe computing machines, and punchedfull of those little square holes.

Fran Kubelik: How many of those drinks did you have?

C.C. Baxter: [holding up four fingers] Three.

J.D. Sheldrake: Ya know, you see a girl a couple of times a week, just for laughs, and right away they think you're gonna divorce your wife. Now I ask you, is that fair?

C.C. Baxter: No, sir, it's very unfair... Especially to your wife.

Fran Kubelik: Just because I wear a uniform doesn't make me a girl scout.

J.D. Sheldrake: Tell me, Baxter. Have you seen Music Man?

C.C. Baxter: Not yet. I hear it's one swell show.

J.D. Sheldrake: How would you like to go tonight?

C.C. Baxter: You and me? I thought you were taking the branch manager from Kansas City.

J.D. Sheldrake: No, I have other plans. You can have both tickets.

C.C. Baxter: Well... that's very kind of you. But I'm not feeling well. See, I've got this cold. I'm gonna go right home.

J.D. Sheldrake: Baxter, you're not reading me. I told you I have plans.

C.C. Baxter: So do I. I'm gonna take four aspirins, get into bed, so you might as well give the tickets to somebody else.

J.D. Sheldrake: Look, Baxter. I'm not just giving these tickets. I wanna swap them.

C.C. Baxter: Swap 'em? For what?

J.D. Sheldrake: It also says here that you are alert, astute and quite imaginative.

C.C. Baxter: Oh? Oh...

J.D. Sheldrake: That's good thinking, Baxter.

Margie: [out of nowhere] You like Castro? [a blank look from Bud] I mean -- how do you feel about Castro?

C.C. Baxter: What is Castro?

Margie: You know, that big-shot down in Cuba with the crazy beard.

C.C. Baxter: What about him?

Margie: Because as far as I'm concerned, he's a no good fink. Two weeks ago I wrote him a letter -- never even answered me.

Fran Kubelik: I'd like to spell it out for you... only I can't spell!

Dr. Dreyfuss: I don't know what you did to that girl in there - and don't tell me - but it was bound to happen, the way you carry on. Live now, pay later. Diner's Club! Why don't you grow up, Baxter? Be a mensch! You know what that means?

C.C. Baxter: I'm not sure.

Dr. Dreyfuss: A mensch - a human being! So you got off easy this time. so you were lucky.

C.C. Baxter: Yeah, wasn't I?

Sylvia: You mean you bring other girls up here?

Kirkeby: Certainly not! I'm a happily married man.

Fran Kubelik: What's a tennis racket doing in the kitchen?

C.C. Baxter: Tennis racket? Oh, I remember, I was cooking myself an Italian dinner.

[Fran looks confused] I use it to strain the spaghetti.

C.C. Baxter: It's a wonderful thing, dinner for two.

Fran Kubelik: Do you usually eat alone?

C.C. Baxter: Oh no. Sometimes I have dinner with Ed Sullivan. Sometimes Dinah Shore, or Perry Como. The other night I had dinner with Mae West. Of course she was much younger then.

The Stanley Rubric:

Legacy: 8.33

Impact/Significance: 9.33

Novelty: 9

Classic-ness: 9.67

Rewatchability: 7.5

Audience Score: 8.8 (87% Google, 89% RT)

Total: 52.63

Remaining Questions:

• How do Fran and Baxter explain things to Matushka?

• Where do Fran and Baxter find new jobs?

• Does Baxter actually leave the apartment?