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The Apartment highlights the gap between anglo-derived American puritan values and the more open accomodations of their European cousins.
Billy Wilder understands the reality of human behaviour in the USA of the 1950’s and subtley points up the hypocrisy involved, but in an entertainment, not a polemic. Wilder, having just completed Some Like It Hot was keen to continue working with Jack Lemmon, seeing in him a ‘kind of genius’, and as he didn’t have anything prepared delved into his notebook of idea’s and set to work with his writing partner I.A.L Diamond. What he pulled out of his bag of tricks was an idea he jotted down after viewing David Lean’s Brief Encounter, namely, what happens to the guy that lends the lovers his apartment? how does he crawl back into those sheets? Notwithstanding that he’s mis-read Coward, from this premise they proceed to construct the marvellous social satire that is The Apartment.

Bud Baxter is a low level clerk on the rise in a massive insurance firm in Manhattan. The key to his rise is simply the key to his apartment, that he’s taken to lending out to his superiors at the office in exchange for a good word for him, promotion-wise. The deal brings it’s own problems, and even getting into his own bed some nights proves difficult, not to mention cleaning up after his ‘guests’. Wilder mixes his cocktail with a sweetness provided by Lemmon’s winning performance. His Bud is a genial and honest guy, who does not question the morals of what he’s doing once, allowing the audience to go along with the deal and not to focus too much on the inherant sordid nature of it, not yet anyway. Some sacred cows of the late 50’s are nicely skewered, including television and even Marilyn Monroe, is a scene with one of the key borrowers played by Ray Walston.
Walston will again step up to the plate for Wilder in a lead role some 4 years later in Kiss Me Stupid, filling in for Peter Sellars who had a heart attack during the first week of filming. Sadly Walston was a weak link and the film suffers, and we are left to wonder at what might have been?

After some scheduling issues and catching a bad cold from being forced out into the cold New York air, Bud is called to the office of big boss Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray) and on the way up, convinced promotion is in the air he gets flirty with the lovely elevator girl Fran Kubelick (Shirley MacLaine) with whom he shares a nice and natural connection. Sheldrake commences to lecture Bud and it seems the jig is up and Bud will be fired. Sheldrake then stuns him by asking for the key himself, leading to Bud’s classic retort about the amount of rotten apples, percentage-wise.
Bud exits, happy with his promotion he asks Kubelick out for the evening and she agrees, after she has someone to see first. Wilder creates the set up and now delivers some pay off with some delightful play at a Xmas party, where Bud’s dreams are seen to be as fractured as the compact mirror that betrays the reality of the situation. Kubelick is in an affair with Sheldrake that she wanted to be out of, until he re-commited with promises that he’ll leave his wife. Bud is heart-broken, and goes out on a bender, picking up a woman for the night, upon getting back to his apartment he discovers Fran unconscious on his bed, having taken an overdose of pills, having had an argument with Sheldrake.

Bud nurses Fran back to health with the aid of his next door neighbour, a Jewish doctor. This allows Wilder to get in some conventional moralising at last and it’s Bud’s perceived promiscuous lifestyle that cops a pasting. Bud is entreated to be a ‘mensch, a human being’ and he’s forced to examine his own behaviour for the first time in the light of his enabling for Sheldrake and the damage caused to Fran. Bud sublimates his own happiness for Fran, thinking he’s lost her and attempting to help smooth the situation, or still act as the social lubricant he’s been all along, albiet with no attendent gain this time. MacMurray is betrayed to his wife as a philanderer by his secretary, herself a former victim and is evicted from the family home, freeing him to take up with Fran at last. Bud finally realises that he has to make a stand, and the dream job he has wheeled and dealed for has to be rejected in order for Bud to at last become a human, mensch-wise.

Wilder examines the american dream with a searing focus, not as bitter and dark as Ace In The Hole, but every bit as incisive. In a culture where everything is a commodity, where the prevailing ethos is ‘live now, pay later’ he’s asking us to consider that a line in the sand needs to drawn and it takes a clear head to see it and a brave heart to do it. Lemmon is magnificent as Bud, MacLaine is radiant as Fran, little wonder Wilder re-teamed them for the fun French farce Irma la Douce a couple of years later. It’s the charm and grace in Lemmon’s performance that anchors the film, and makes the arc of the character work so even if Bud made a pragmatic decision that is morally compromised at the beginning, he can right the ledger by the end, and in doing so re-affirm our faith in basic human decency. In stark contrast to Sheldrake’s selfishness, the callous way in which he treats the ill Fran and the careless insult of the $100 Xmas present, Wilder is saying what we value does not always have a dollar figure attached. The Apartment is written flawlessly and edited beautifully, craftsmen at the top of their form, it’s as salient in the 21st century as it was when it was made, and it’s message will resonate for many years to come.

The Apartment is deeply rooted in the 1960s business world, an era that came back in view with Mad Men. But it also touched relevancy in the 90s, possibly inspiring David Fincher’s Fight Club with its opening narration.
As Mad Men makes clear, this is a chauvinistic world. It would be almost a decade before women’s lib brought a lesson or two. It’s hard not to cringe watching the men employed at the New York insurance agency where most of the film is set grabbing around at the spunky elevator girl Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine) knowing that the threat of a sexual harassment complaint wasn’t even in their mental lexicon.
But even in this bucket of rotten apples there is room for a well-meaning ordinary guy like Jack Lemmon. His C.C. Baxter became his best remembered performance because it is so purely the quintessential lonely guy. Everyone pushes him around and his bosses belittle him. In the 50s and 60s, moving up in the business world was linked to masculinity, and so meant the world to men. When we first meet him Baxter is at a moral crossroad, having to choose if his dignity means more to him than his career (a theme that would resurface in the 90s). Even his office, a drab place without cubicles or privacy, turns him into a chip in a machine.
Along with Psycho and Billy Wilder’s own Some Like it Hot from the previous year, The Apartment was instrumental in bringing the demise of the Production Code. After the success of Some Like it Hot, Wilder was eager to work with Lemmon again, but perhaps he should have waited a little for this one. It’s exciting to imagine the sexual-psychological depths Wilder could have explored with greater ease once the Code was crumbled and swept away completely. Still, The Apartment was groundbreaking in its sexual innuendo and in-your-face substance abuse. What he was able to make is a poignant movie that is both funny and sad in like Alexander Payne’s most wonderful work.
Baxter is not blameless. At the first point he cares mostly about his career. To advance he lends out the key to his apartment to philandering husbands who happen to be his work superiors. He tries too hard to be a people pleaser, but the encompassing theme of The Apartment is his transformation into a mensch. That such an ideological morph was even thought of as the crux of the film is a sign of the modern mentality present in the making of The Apartment. The situation initially allowed but later denounced by Baxter is intended to make us laugh as well as cringe.
Baxter is a man capable of sincere love and that is what he has for Miss Kubelik. She too is facing a moral conflict as the mistress of Mr. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray), Baxter’s boss. But she too will change and Wilder was perhaps the first director honest about the way women are hurt through affairs. Rarely, too, was a female character allotted so much wit and the trick is that we all fall in love with her. In her and Baxter we have two good people caught in situations they aren’t proud of. Pain is inevitable and we can almost see Baxter’s heartbreak when he discovers that Kubelik is Sheldrake’s mistress.
The Apartment was advertised as a comedy as a box-office ploy, but it’s truly a dark tale. It’s set during the holidays, but during Christmas a happy ending still seems far off. The holidays can be such a lonely time for some folks. Instead, Christmas comes with a suicide attempt by Miss Kubelik after she realizes she is being used by Sheldrake. This changes The Apartment into an intense tragedy. Few bait and switches work so well, but The Apartment is an exceptionally well-crafted film.
As skillful as Wilder must have been to pull this off, it would not have worked had his cast not been as versatile. Even the jerk Sheldrake has to change appearances to hide his activities. He can pose all too well as a devote father, but shows his true colors when he refuses to be there for Kubelik after her suicide attempt or to even speak to her.
Jack Lemmon is truly fantastic and delivers one of the most deserving Oscar nominations ever. It’s amazing how many emotions he conveys through Baxter. He can be goofy, but unselfishly caring. He may have tried too hard to kiss up and do things which weren’t right, but he grows the nerve to tell Sheldrake off. Through Lemmon’s dynamic rang, we see Baxter come full circle. First as a desperate ant in an office that seems ready to swallow him whole and ultimately as a mensch. More than just the happy ending, it is watching Baxter and Kubelik becoming the persons they want to be that makes The Apartment such a pleasing movie. Having come full circle, they can guiltlessly shut up and deal.

What makes THE APARTMENT work? Is it the writing? Yes, but that’s not all. The direction? It’s perfect, but not what I’m really thinking of. What makes THE APARTMENT perfect is the acting genius of the one and only Jack Lemmon. His movements, the way he talks is all so… rhythmic. His performance is like music. The happy-sad, melancholy performance of the century.

Lemmon portrays C.C. “Buddy boy” Baxter, a man who is often blending in with the rest of the drones in the insurance company he works at. He suddenly is moving up in the world being noticed by company big shots, such as Mr. Dobisch (Ray Walston). What’s his secret? He lends his apartment to higher ranking company officials for “meetings” with certain female acquaintances. Baxter’s key is circulated throughout the office to a few executives including Mr. Dobisch. Baxter seems to lead a life that revolves around work. He’s a lonely guy who, would normally go home after work, eat, then sleep.

Most nights, Baxter has to put that on hold for a few hours, to wait ‘till the executives finish up. At the office someone catches his eye, Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine, also wonderful) an elevator operator who is the object of many of the office men’s desires.

Spoilers ahead!

Throw in J.D. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray… as you’ve never seen him before)the head of the company all the way up on the 27th floor. He has seen the excellent reviews Baxter has received from a group of executives and ties it to a rumor of an apartment key floating around the office.

Sheldrake now, wants in. He promotes Baxter and gets the key. There’s one slight problem… he takes Ms. Kubelik to the apartment. And once Baxter finds out he has a pretty huge dilemma. The job or the dame?

Many of THE APARTMENT’s scenes sparkle with great timing of great dialouge such as:

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.

C.C. Baxter: You hear what I said, Miss Kubelik? I absolutely adore you. Fran Kubelik: Shut up and deal.

That last quote is forever etched in the fabric of film as one of the best last lines ever.

So many scenes in THE APARTMENT sparkle with Jack Lemmon’s brilliance. Just look at the way he seem s to float around that apartment in the few scenes with he and Shirley MacLaine alone together. The way he moves a he drains the pasta through tennis racket. His energy, the way he hums. Just PERFECT!

THE APARTMENT has not dated at all since 1960 and still holds strong as a marvelous film!

The best ever… film wise.

If one were to ask just how good is Billy Wilder as a filmmaker the best response would be to say “The Apartment is how good he is.” This is the apex, the summit, the Mt. Everest of Billy Wilder’s powers. It is on the one hand a pretty grim movie thematically. This isn’t a jolly romp of a comedy like Some Like It Hot. And yet on the other hand, as a comedy, it’s as funny and charming as any romantic comedy I’ve ever seen in its own subtle way. 10 or 12 years ago Cameron Crowe published a fantastic book-length interview with Billy Wilder called Conversations with Wilder and in that book Billy Wilder discussed his idea of the sweet and the sour aspects of life. How without the sour the sweet is not as sweet. The value of the high points is determined by how well you cope with the low points. Cameron Crowe even borrowed that concept as a theme in his film Vanilla Sky several years later. The concept of the sweet and sour is dramatized so perfectly in The Apartment with its mixture of cynicism, tug-at-the-heartstings drama, and moments of laugh-out-loud comedy.
The reason I think that Billy Wilder can get away with being so cynical most of the time is because, unlike some artists such as Gasper Noe, that is not all he is. Wilder’s worldview may be little grim but what I get out of his films is that he has a big heart when it comes to people, characters. He is never condescending, never judgmental, never looking down on his characters and their behavior. He has a sort of detached amusement at watching what people are sometimes capable of and loves them in spite of their flaws. He finds the humor in it and that humor is like an affirmation of love for the people that exist and persevere in his world. So his natural inclination towards cynicism, which is there in a lot of his movies like Sunset Blvd. and Ace in the Hole in particular, is softened and made tolerable by his humanism. And even by having a happy, or as some people argue an ambiguous, leaning towards happy ending he’s never sentimental, just very funny and very warm.
In The Apartment is what I consider to be the single greatest scene ever written and performed for a film. It is the scene where Fred MacMurray asks Jack Lemmon, without ever really asking him, for the key to his apartment. The dialogue, the pacing, the timing and watching Jack Lemmon’s slow realization of what is actually is actually going on is perfect. Jack Lemmon remains my favorite actor. He is just a marvel to watch. He has incredible range if that is what we use as a measure of talent. Just before The Apartment he was in Some Like It Hot and right after he was doing some really heavy, dramatic work in The Days of Wine and Roses. What is most amazing about him to me is that he was a classically trained actor, not a comedian who happened became an actor, and yet when he’s doing comedy there is nobody funnier. Aside from the films already mentioned check him out in Avanti!, The Out-of-Towners, The Odd Couple, Glengarry Glen Ross and many others. He’s just fantastic.
As far as The Apartment goes the whole movie is perfect. It is Billy Wilder’s best film as well as Jack Lemmon’s. Even the best movies ever made have their flaws but there is not a missed note in this whole movie. It is hard to say whether The Apartment is my favorite film of all time so I’ll just play it safe and say it’s in the top 5. It’s great!

Billy Wilder would have to be one of the greatest directors of all time. And I’ve only seen 5 of his films. While this isn’t his best film, it’s still a great romantic comedy. Jack Lemmon gives the best performance out of the cast, though they’re all quite good. I always enjoy Fred MacMurray whether it be in films such as this or in his role on the TV show “My Three Sons”.

So overall I enjoyed the film, even if it doesn’t shine as brightly as others from this era.