Amazon.com essential video: Romance at its most anti-romantic--that is the Billy Wilder stamp of genius, and this Best Picture Academy Award winner from 1960 is no exception. Set in a decidedly unsavory world of corporate climbing and philandering, the great filmmaker's trenchant, witty satire-melodrama takes the office politics of a corporation and plays them out in the apartment of lonely clerk C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon). By lending out his digs to the higher-ups for nightly extramarital flings with their secretaries, Baxter has managed to ascend the business ladder faster than even he imagined. The story turns even uglier, though, when Baxter's crush on the building's melancholy elevator operator (Shirley MacLaine) runs up against her long-standing affair with the big boss (a superbly smarmy Fred MacMurray). The situation comes to a head when she tries to commit suicide in Baxter's apartment. Not the happiest or cleanest of scenarios, and one that earned the famously caustic and cynically humored Wilder his share of outraged responses, but looking at it now, it is a funny, startlingly clear-eyed vision of urban emptiness and is unfailingly understanding of the crazy decisions our hearts sometimes make. Lemmon and MacLaine are ideally matched, and while everyone cites Wilder's Some Like It Hot closing line "Nobody's perfect" as his best, MacLaine's no-nonsense final words--"Shut up and deal"--are every bit as memorable. Wilder won three Oscars for The Apartment, for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay (cowritten with longtime collaborator I.A.L. Diamond). --Robert Abele
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - One of my top ten films of all time...
I have seen many great films during my days on this planet, by many great directors, writers, and/or producers. And I really can't remember when I first saw this 1960 "best picture" winner, since I was ... Read More
Rating: - The Apartment
Great film, this is Shirley McLaine and Jack Lemmon at there best.We see two lonely people look for love in all the wrong places.
Rating: - An "Apartment" worth checking into!
There is without a doubt this movie deserved the 1960 Best Picture award,not to mention the other Oscars that contributed to this movie's success. A great cast of Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray ... Read More
Rating: - Delicious 'Lemmonaid'!
It SHOULD be sufficient to report that Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine feature in this superb classic movie.
These two superb actors, carry this brilliant story and script along, effortlessly. Supporting ... Read More
Rating: - STILL GREAT AFTER ALL THESE YEARS!
I am reviewing the new collector's edition DVD for this film. The film itself is a true classic and still holds up beautifully. Jack Lemmon is in fine form as well as the entire cast. The print looks great on this edition ... Read More
- One of my top ten films of all time...
- The Apartment