The Apartment (1960)

It's good to see the Academy Awards found room to honour this very fine film by Billy Wilder.

In a recent review, I lamented not even a single Oscar nomination - let alone a win - for John Ford's The Searchers featuring John Wayne in a career performance.

But The Apartment was definitely recognized at the 1961 Academy Awards. This comedy/drama won five trophies, including nods for picture, director and writing.

It's interesting to watch The Apartment now in a world where friends with benefits are touted - a sexual relationship, but no long-term commitment.

Women are largely used, and tossed aside, for the pleasure of business executives in The Apartment.

C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) is one of many thousands of life insurance company employees in New York City. He has made his apartment available for his superiors' trysts for about a year. There's no suggestion Baxter has any moral qualms about what he's doing. Maybe he wants to get ahead. Maybe he's afraid of what will happen if he refuses to act as host. His plans and concerns are routinely ignored by his bosses ready for some time with their respective mistresses. He stays late at work - not so much because he's that dedicated, but his apartment is in use. That means nights with little sleep and the poor health that results.

In insurance terms, Baxter's bosses have transferred the risk of their affairs to him. He's the one who has to deal with neighbours who complain about the noise and his apparent constant stream of girlfriends. A Christmas office party also reminded me of a similar scene from a first-season episode of Mad Men. A woman does a striptease. Couples make out in offices and in common areas. How many of these folks are cheating on their spouses?

Baxter's life is challenging enough with balancing different requests for his apartment. Things get even trickier when he falls for elevator operator Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine). She's the latest short-term conquest for Jeff Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray), another bigwig with Consolidated Insurance. Jeff wants her back. Fran really loves Sheldrake, but is despondent when she learns plenty of other girls have shared his affections over the years. His proclamations - I love you, I want you back - are part of a well-oiled machine of using and dumping women. Kubelik ponders suicide. "He doesn't give a damn about me," she realizes at one point. "I was jinxed from the word go."

Baxter's room service earns him a promotion from his bosses, but the support of folks like Joe Dobisch (Ray Walston) is largely conditional on his not making any waves. He'll stir things up if he decides to pursue Kubelik for himself.

The performances in this film are great. The script is exceptional. Watch this film.

RATING: 10/10

FUN FACTS: Naomi Stevens, who appears as Baxter's next door neighbour, appeared as Mama Rossini in Fred MacMurray's television series, My Three Sons. Her screen husband, Jack Kruschen, was nominated for best supporting actor for his work in The Apartment.

Fred MacMurray made some fine films, including Double Indemnity. It's too bad his last film credit was 1978's killer bee movie, The Swarm.

Hope Holiday appears briefly as Mrs. Margie MacDougall, a woman Baxter meets when he hits a bar on Christmas Eve. It's one of just 28 acting credits for Holiday.

Wilder Times Kevin Lilly offers some interesting insight into The Apartment. Interesting facts include:
- Wilder's idea for the film began after seeing David Lean's Brief Encounter.
- The office scene where Lemmon toils on the 17th floor of Consolidated Life was shot on the same soundstage as part of Porgy and Bess.
- Wilder tweaked his story when he learned Shirley Maclaine knew how to play gin rummy from her association with the Rat Pack.
- United Artists suggested Groucho Marx play Dr. Dreyfuss.

Stalag 17 (1953)

Two films, a decade apart, offer very different takes on the Allied prisoner-of-war experience during the Second World War.

The Great Escape, from director John Sturges in 1963, boasts an all-star cast including James Garner, Steve McQueen and Richard Attenborough. It's based on the true story of the largest POW escape and the resulting massacre of 50 of the escapees. McQueen's exploits on a motorcycle at the film's end is a lasting image from that film. Shot in colour by director John Sturges, The Great Escape is a must-see film. The book on which it's based, Paul Brickhill's The Great Escape, is also a great read. Here, POWs work together to outwit their German captors who are continually looking for tunnel activity. The film, despite the murder of so many young men, ends on an optimistic note.

Stalag 17, shot a decade earlier in gritty black and white by Billy Wilder (Some Like It Hot, Sunset Boulevard), centres the conflict on the prisoners themselves. The film ends on a cynical note.

When two prisoners attempt an escape early in the film, Sgt. J.J. Sefton (William Holden) bets the pair will be caught within minutes of slipping out of camp. His prediction proves true and the other prisoners that share the barracks with him are convinced Sefton tipped off the Germans. Sefton's charmed existence in the camp certainly makes him a suspicious character - he bribes the guards, enjoys access to luxuries the others can only dream about - liquor, eggs and makes no qualms about wanting no part of escape efforts. He's dedicated to making himself as comfortable as possible while in captivity. Sefton isn't very nice, but he's no traitor. And, despite what people think of him, he offers many diversions to pass the time, from gambling to moonshine and a telescope to see female prisoners being deloused.

Sefton tries to find the tipster in the barracks as demands for retribution against him escalate. He's in a situation that can't be solved with his business savvy. The stakes get raised when the Germans learn from their source that a recently captured American, Lieut. James Dunbar (Don Taylor), destroyed a train carrying much-needed ammunition. The SS want him.

Stalag 17, as a drama, works very well. Misplaced loyalties and quick judgments take their toll. It's the film's comedic efforts that wear thin on this viewer. Holden deserved his Oscar nomination, and win, for best actor. But the supporting actor nod for Robert Strauss as 'Animal' Kuzawa is baffling. He's infatuated with Betty Grable and longs to meet Russian women who are held prisoner in a nearby compound. His dreams of being with The Girl with the Million Dollar Legs grow tiresome, as do the efforts of his buddy Sgt. Harry Shapiro (Harvey Lembeck) to redirect his attentions.

Stalag 17 does offer an early cinematic nod to post-traumatic stress disorder with Joey (Robinson Stone), a prisoner who doesn't speak after seeing the other members of his bomber crew killed in their aircraft.

Wilder's film, then, is something of an uneven effort. The mystery surrounding the tipster is riveting. The comedy, often, just isn't that funny.

RATING: 8/10

FUN FACTS: Several members of the film's cast appeared in an earlier Broadway production including Strauss and William Pierson.

Stalag 17 also earned Wilder an Oscar nomination for best director.

Don Taylor went on to direct with credits including The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977) and The Final Countdown .