The Apartment (1960) - Billy Wilder

I viewed this film for the first time on July 4^th, 2010. I was going to watch 'a little bit' before bed and stayed up till 3am.

The premise of this film is simple and clever – a man who is stuck lending his apartment to executives in his company for adulterous rendezvous’. Wilder saw another movie that showed this situation, but not the man who lent the apartment. What kind of man would that be, Wilder wondered. So, following that trail of curiosity, Wilder was led to a great idea. A lesson from Billy: cultivate curiosity. I appreciate a clever idea that never has to try hard to draw in the viewer, who follows the peculiar trail of curiosity a few steps behind Wilder and IAL Diamond (screenwriter).

Baxter’s (Lemon) is a bachelor working in a low position at an insurance company. He hasn’t found the right girl and is lonely. Meanwhile his executive friends have higher positions, wives and families, and flings they bring to his apartment. (In NYC during this time, police officers knocked on the doors of hotels suspected of renting hourly, and would bust those who weren’t with their wives, so the friend’s apartment was important for not getting caught.)

Going up, we meet the elevator operator Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine) and her charm is instant. She is friendly with her passengers, maybe partly to keep her job, but mostly because she is comfortable with people. Behind that comfort is some mystery. At first I thought it was confidence, but as the film progresses, her entanglement with an executive and her own insecurities are revealed. With this new insight, I believe her comfort stems from a disillusionment of not expecting too much out of life. She can’t afford to hope too much. So after a series of disappointments in life, she has continued with acceptance in some dark comfort. Her performance is great and tragic, most poignantly communicated after Baxter points out her broken mirror, “Yes, I know,” she says, “I like it that way. Makes me look the way I feel.” This performance is a great relief to a certain other lead star that Wilder worked with, who’s whiny and ditzy characteristics I find unbearable.

Like Fran, our man Baxter accepts his own dark comfort. This is the best role of Jack Lemon I’ve seen. He bring us into his tragedy, but gives us permission to laugh, and I did. I laughed out loud when I saw him drunk-dancing cheek to cheek with a fellow loner, oblivious to the empty bar. Personally, I don’t prefer his over-the-top style like in Some Like It Hot. Here, Lemon still leans towards the theatrical, but it works well in comparison to MacLaine’s subtle performance. It also seems fitting that Baxter is so animated to cover up the discontent he feels with his life. Baxter is constantly trying to keep up the lie that he is a womanizer with his neighbor/doctor.

As someone who is already romantically idealistic, I am wary of what subconscious messages of romance a film might be sending me. But I believe this film portrays more realistic romance than idealistic romance. The cheating men are never fulfilled or rewarded for their infidelity. There is a lot of disillusionment and disappointment - a very real part of pursuing romance. And Fran’s decision to be with Baxter is plausible. The only part that may be argued as too idealistic is how it neatly falls into place at the end. I don’t mind a clear ending and like this one, but the movie could just as well have ended with both Fran and Baxter moving past their disillusionment without ending up together. But we go to the movies to see extraordinary stories, so why not. Drama is life with the boring parts taken out (Hitchcock), so in this romance, the years of disappointment and waiting are taken out for a neat ending. The viewer wants to see these moments of influence that make a difference in the lives of the characters. Like when Baxter confesses, “Ya know, I used to live like Robinson Crusoe; I mean, shipwrecked among 8 million people. And then one day I saw a footprint in the sand, and there you were.”