Reviews from a futon : The Apartment (1960)

THE APARTMENT

1960

Billy Wilder director and co author.

After finding myself in love with ‘Sunset Boulevard’, I followed the Billy Wilder films to see what else he had made… the Apartment was the next one I consumed from him. And, again, it was an enjoyable watch for me, I was drawn in immediately. As I have been reviewing more of his films, I feel they are almost a trolley ride of an experience. In that, from the opening of the film you step on and are instantly whisked along with the story.

Where some films may choose to dwell on the existing life and ease into the story, Wilder seems to enjoy almost jumping in feet first. ‘In media res’ as it were, forgoing much exposition… Several of his films open with a voice over monologues, which help us step on board.

Two of his films begin at the end of the story, narrated in one case as a deathbed confession, while the other, narrated by a character we meet floating in a pool, as police shoot crime scene photos… both clever inversions of narrative. (Sunset Boulevard and Double Indemnity, respectively)

A fond aspect of visiting these older films, is a recontextualizing of actors and actresses I was familiar with…

Jack Lemmon, whom for most folks my age would recall as the ‘straight’ man to Walter Matthow, in ‘Grumpy old men’. It is of note, that the two were initially paired by Wilder in the film ‘Fortune Cookie’, which set off a series of films with the three… culminating in the 1981 ‘Buddy, Buddy’ which was Wilder’s last film.

As well, Shirley MacLaine plays our love interest whom I can vaguely recall from some 80’s Psychic Hotline Shenanigans. Here, you see her in a completely different light. She shows a range of strength to sadness so well, a character that feels so resigned to their lot in life, that she feels real. Especially in this world.

Jack plays CC Baxter… or “Bud”, a younger insurance executive, working to climb the corporate ladder, in order to hopefully expedite this climb he allows married superiors to borrow his apartment for their extra marital affairs.

His efforts in climbing the ladder are a success when he lands in an office. Bud has eyes for the pretty elevator girl played by MacLaine, ‘Miss Kubelik’.

While the Apartment is not as bombastic in cinematography as ‘Sunset Boulevard’, the camerawork is still mastful. Bud, is constatnly in a diminutive position onscreen… he gets pushed into corners subtly, is small in his long office pool, and never really stands out.

In some reading later on the production of the film, they had a short set, so used kids at desks for further rows, and then painted moving backgrounds with long painted ‘ceilings’ that seem to go on forever… further making him seem insignicant in every way.

As I consumed this film, it demonstrates Lemmon’s craft…

Where Bogart eats scenery, cast in stark lighting, taking control… Lemmon manages to blend in. The physicality in his acting lends to this, his character too demure to take up any of the screen, or stand out.

There’s a moment where he is exiting his apartment, while a work associate exits a cab with their ‘date’, just as he could be taller than someone… he scoots down the stairs. There’s a softness to the character that he allows to permeate, at times it feels like a silent film. Almost Chaplin like in his movements. It again recalls theatre acting, where there’s a feeling of projection to the audience, via the camera. That… this is all just slightly larger than life.

Miss Kublik is the only person he is taller than onscreen. I can’t help but to feel echoes of ‘Bud’ in Dustin Hoffman’s acting in The Graduate. It’s here that I found an appreciation in almost every actor on screen, especially these two, but also in Fred MacMurray (who also worked with Wilder on ‘Double Indemnity’) who inhabits the morally faulted Sheldrake.

It’s not until the promotion he has been gaming towards begins to come to pass that does he even stand taller than anyone, and only then as he realizes his new boss, wants use of the Apartment for his own extra-maritial affairs involving Miss Kubelik. Bud, completely unaware, in earnest continues to pursue her… naturally, this all comes to a head.

Another film that Wilder had a hand in writing, and just like most of his work, the stories and dialogue are all very natural (despite the occasionally bizarre setups in some of his films (‘Buddy, Buddy’, I’m looking at you.))

Wilder had gone on record to eschew the extravagance of some filmakers, himself a German filmmaker who eschewed the current styles of the time…. he felt Welles to be over the top, the same could be said of the expressionism of Murnaw, and Fritz Lang. Preferring to lean to story and characters in his films, but there is still a mastery of craft in it’s subtlety.

The office scenes are all brightly lit in rooms that seem to go on forever, making Bud even smaller, just another number in the company. Rows of desks… His apartment, a gentle lit contrast. All shot closer and more intimately.

Even the use of a nick-name for Baxter, almost made you feel as though no one even knew his name.

Miss Kubelik leaves her cigaretted case behind accidentally, which Baxter returns to his boss Mr. Sheldrake. He observes the broken mirror, to which Sheldrake responds ‘thats from when she threw it at me’.

Later, when he sees Kubelik with the case, it is revelatory for him… he asks about the broken mirror… to which she somberly replies “ Yes, I know. I like it that way. Makes me look the way I feel.”

Where the cigarette case marks a change in Baxter, in ‘Sunset Boulevard’ a gift of a golden engraved cigarette case is Norma’s gift to Joe on New Year’s Eve, almost marking the moment he has committed to his role as a kept man. Betty, while working with Joe on the script notices the case and asks who it was from…

Bud’s neighbours, Dr. Dreyfuss the Jewish doctor and his wife take note of the going ons in the apartment… the noises at night… two… three times. All attributing to Bud himself. The doctor later challenges Bud head on at Christmas… ‘it’s never too late to become a mensch…. a human being, Baxter.’ By New Year’s eve he even declares himself one.

Miss Kubelik, leaves Sheldrake at a party alone, and returns to Bud, where she pulls a deck of cards, and instructs him to “shut up and deal”.

I'll happily score this film as 9 chesterfields and a La-z boy, all day.