FAVORITE BILLY WILDER FILM

This week it’s Billy Wilder. What do you consider to be his greatest film? What is your personal favorite?

I believe that “Sunset Blvd.” is not only Billy Wilder’s masterpiece, but one of the greatest films ever made. There is not one flaw in this tale of irony, which ages like wine. My personal favorite of his is another noir, “Double Indemnity.” It’s grandest virtue coming from its cinematography and performances. Stanwyck was never more captivating, as the femme fatale of all femme fatales. MacMurray was never more indelible, as the ultimate flawed hero. Both films true classics.

It’s a tough call between Sunset Blvd and Double Indemnity. I might give the slight edge to Double Indemnity because I really like the ‘Insurance detectives’ theme.

Wilder is an odd director, because I don’t see how his noir films and his Jack Lemmon comedies could possibly have come from the same person. Particularly The Apartment comes off as high horsed and preachy, but based on that and Some Like It Hot you’d think his style was entirely suited to screwball comedies where men rescue helpless women from the cruel heartless phallusscape of the real world.

My favorite is Love in the Afternoon.

Ace in the Hole.

The Apartment

“Double Indemnity”

Sunset Boulevard

It’s a tough call. I can’t decide between “Sunset Boulevard” and “Some Like It Hot.”

And “Double Indemnity,” “Ace in the Hole” and “The Apartment” are scarcely chopped live.

To my great misfortune, I was not a big Jack Lemmon fan in my youth, so I it wasn’t until the 80’s that I realized how good that movie was, or even bothered to watch it from start to finish. Still, I would have to go with Sunset boulevard as my favorite Wilder movie.

" It’s a tough call. I can’t decide between “Sunset Boulevard” and “Some Like It Hot". "
…in total agreement !

Marilyn Monroe:
Am not privy to her expectations of life. In Death she got immortality. She will never grow old.

Norma Desmond and other real media stars:

From the movie script:-
“First assistant director: I understand she [Norma Desmond] was a terror to work with.
Cecil B. DeMille: Only toward the end. You know, a dozen press agents working overtime can do terrible things to the human spirit.”

The paparazzi + Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan or the late Princess Diana or even Zsa Zsa Gabor. Was Gabor’s slap at the policeman a result of years of pent up anger? She wasn’t even 75 years old (maybe).

For me it is a split between Ace in the Hole and The Apartment

Sunset Boulevard.

It is possibly the greatest film in all of american cinema.

I’m going to have to say SUNSET BOULEVARD. There’s not a dull moment. Followed maybe by THE APARTMENT and/or DOUBLE INDEMNITY.

I’d probably pick THE APARTMENT if you pressed me, but on some days I lean towards DOUBLE INDEMNITY and others towards SOME LIKE IT HOT or SUNSET BOULEVARD or KISS ME STUPID or ONE, TWO, THREE.

As much as I like SOME LIKE IT HOT, I always find myself wishing the stuff with the gangsters wasn’t such a drag (as it were) on the film. The film just deflates when they converge on the hotel at the end.

stalag 17 but eh. i like war movies.

beautiful.

Never been a Billy Wilder classics fan. Never liked the way he force-fed his mise-en-scene and themes. But he got better as he got older (like John Huston) and The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes is a staggering masterpiece.