November 24, 2008: The Apartment
I had originally set myself the goal to fill in the gaps in my Best Picture viewing back to 1960, prior to the next Oscar show in late February. However, these days my January and February are entirely consumed with trying to watch every single nominated film in the current year. Thus, it seems daunting to throw another half-dozen lengthy movies on top of that. Keep in mind also that the reason I haven’t yet seen most of these films is because I assume I won’t much like them.
At the time of my viewing of The Apartment (Best Picture 1960), however, the Oscars were still far enough away that it seemed a reasonable indulgence. Also, considering that this is a Billy Wilder comedy and not a Robert Wise musical, the prospects were much brighter for me enjoying the experience.
What we have here is a simple romance story, complicated by circumstances, not unlike many romantic comedies showing up in theatres to this very day. Jack Lemmon plays a young up-and-comer in a New York City insurance company (a job which at the time involved sitting alongside dozens or hundreds of others in a large open-concept office with a typewriter and Rolodex and phone on his desk). We learn that he stays late at work most nights because his apartment is being “borrowed” by his various bosses at the company for their dalliances with mistresses. The promise of promotions and rewards cause this to spin out of control, and Lemmon risks career suicide if he refuses any requests.
Shirley MacLaine is one of the elevator operators in the building and is friendly with Lemmon’s character, but notoriously does not date anyone from the office. It turns out this isn’t quite true and she ends up in our protagonist’s apartment, although unfortunately not with him. Throw in some misunderstandings, a bit of slapstick, and bluntly truthful supporting characters such as a doctor living in an adjacent apartment, and we’ve got a classic Billy Wilder comedy.
The story and execution struck me as surprisingly ribald for the time. I know that Hollywood movies were much more honest and coarse prior to the early 1930s, before the so-called Hays Production Code had studios not-so-voluntarily adopting a cleaner approach, leading to nearly 40 years of films which had their wings clipped and which had to dance around some of their subject matter. This led to a level of thinly-veiled subtlety mastered by certain filmmakers such as Wilder, with The Apartment and Some Like it Hot (1959) being prime examples. Things opened up again in the late 1960s with the Motion Picture Association of America’s (MPAA) rating system, allowing the rougher and more realistic (often R- or X-rated) work of the 1970s which was the backlash against all those years of artificially clean movies. The Apartment is very open about what’s going on in Lemmon’s apartment, but of course stays away from the details. There’s real weight to the story, with complex relationships and a suicide attempt – this isn’t just light comedy.
Of course, this is one of the legendary pairings of Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, who would appear together again in Irma La Douce a few years later. The chemistry is great, they are both punchy in a way they maintained individually throughout their careers, and while it’s a bit jarring for me to see them both so young, having grown up more in the Terms of Endearment/Glengarry Glen Ross era, I always like to see actors who can work well together. Seeing an earlier incarnation of New York City is always a treat as well.
The Apartment is a 1960s Best Picture winner, and it’s not a treacly musical. That makes it a winner in my books.
{ 1 } Comments