The Apartment

Billy Wilder's THE APARTMENT blends his customary harsh cynicism with a humane streak that appears only fleetingly in his films. It stars Jack Lemmon as C.C. Baxter, an office clerk who curries favor with the executives in his office by giving them the key to his small apartment for the odd afternoon dalliance. Among them his is his callous boss, J.D. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray), who Baxter eventually learns is using his place to sleep with Miss Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), the sweet elevator operator the clerk has loved from afar. When Sheldrake coldly dumps the vulnerable young woman, she tries to commit suicide, but is saved by the intervention of Baxter. As the clerk lovingly nurses the young woman back to health he begins to realize, with the help of epigrammatic neighbor Dr. Dreyfuss (Jack Kruschen), exactly how much of a fool he has been. Wilder brilliant depiction of the average American office as a place of brutality, coldness, and alienation conjure up Kafka and Marx. The director seduces the audience into what appears to be an unusually frank sex comedy, but turns the tables in displaying the consequences of the executive's cold indifference. Lemmon and MacLaine both give career performances and MacMurray is memorable as the blandly smiling snake.

Cast:

Year - Presenter		Award Category		Result		Name
1960 - Academy Awards		Best Art Direction - Set Decoration (b&w)		Winner		Not Applicable
1960 - Academy Awards		Best Director		Winner		Billy Wilder
1960 - Academy Awards		Best Film Editing		Winner		Not Applicable
1960 - Academy Awards		Best Original Screenplay		Winner		I. A. L. Diamond
1960 - Academy Awards		Best Original Screenplay		Winner		Billy Wilder
1960 - Academy Awards		Best Picture		Winner		Not Applicable

"...This seductive, bittersweet 1960 classic was Billy Wilder's last great film....Its layers of satire and genuine tenderness resonate..." -- 5 out of 5 stars -- Kevin Harley , (Total Film)

"...Fresh....[MacLaine's performance] breaks through Lemmon's brittle good cheer..." -- Rating: A- -- Ty Burr , (Entertainment Weekly)

5 stars out of 5 -- "Lemmon gives on of his best performances ever, in a part written specifically for him..." -- Jan Vincent-Rudzki , (Ultimate DVD)

"By the time he made THE APARTMENT, Wilder had become a master at a kind of sardonic, satiric comedy that had sadness at its center." -- Roger Ebert , (Chicago Sun-Times)

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