TSPDT placing: #67
Directed by: Billy Wilder
Written by: Billy Wilder, I.A.L. Diamond
Starring: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray, Ray Walston, Jack Kruschen, David Lewis, Hope Holiday
If I ever had any doubts that Billy Wilder was one of Hollywood's all-time greatest directors, you may now consider me totally convinced. My ninth film from Wilder is among his very best, a sophisticated, sensitive and cynical comedy/drama/romance that satirises and critiques corporate big business and America's fading moral standards. Jack Lemmon, following the success of the director's previous film –the hilarious cross-dressing farce Some Like It Hot (1959) – here proves his worth as a dramatic actor, bringing to the character of C. C. Baxter the charm and sincerity of an average, working-class American employee, trying to making an honest living from his powerless position as an office clerk at a large, impersonal insurance firm. In a society where power leads to corruption, Baxter finds his own steadfast morals beginning to slide, having agreed to loan out his apartment to higher-ranked business executives for the purposes of their underhanded extra-martial affairs. It is an act through which Baxter hopes to climb the corporate ladder, though he is simultaneously disgusted by the moral implications of his actions; lending out his apartment is the business equivalent of prostitution, and he recognises that he is merely being exploited in a manner than harms his moral integrity.
The Apartment (1960) was written by Billy Wilder and regular-collaborator I.A.L. Diamond, and is every bit as intelligent, witty and classy as the likes of Sunset Blvd. (1950) and Double Indemnity (1944). Though certainly not as laugh-out-loud hilarious as Some Like It Hot, the film dispenses comedy, romance and drama in such perfectly-portioned satchels that only a master could have helmed the production. Cinematographer Joseph LaShelle shot the film in crisp black-and-white, subduing the otherwise festive atmosphere of the Christmas-time setting and creating an air of bittersweet melancholy, the sort of sensation one feels when left alone with a joyful celebration – its sounds muffled by the adjoining walls – taking place in the next room. The Apartment is also a meditation on loneliness. Though Baxter has developed an unearned reputation as something of a "party animal" {allowing for some amusing confrontations with his neighbour, Dr. Dreyfuss (Jack Kruschen)}, he is very much a solitary figure, disheartened by the general slackening of society's moral standards and left wondering why nice guys always finish last.
Of course, I couldn't review The Apartment without also mentioning the performances of Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray, who help form the film's pivotal romantic triangle. MacLaine's Fran Kubelik, one of the building's elevator operators, is bright and independent in most respects, but has found herself romantically exploited by the insurance firm's director, Jeff D. Sheldrake (MacMurray), who has promised her a steady future but refuses to divorce his current wife. MacLaine brings a beautifully-balanced combination of intelligence and vulnerability to the role, at first appearing to be a carefree, upright young lady before slowly revealing vital flaws in her character. MacMurray, who I'd previously enjoyed as Walter Neff in Wilder's definitive film-noir, brings just the right amount of smug condescension to his interactions with Baxter, and his character's attempts at earnestness are immediately transparent as acts of unashamed manipulation. At the 1961 Academy Awards, voters were obviously impressed with the film's ability to tell a great story without the usual syrupy hijinks, and The Apartment took away a deserved five Oscars, including Best Writing, Best Director and Best Picture – the final black-and-white film to do so before Steven Spielberg's Holocaust epic, Schindler's List (1993).
Currently my #2 film of 1960:
1) Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock)
2) The Apartment (Billy Wilder)
3) Peeping Tom (Michael Powell)
Currently my #2 film from director Billy Wilder:
1) Double Indemnity (1944)
2) The Apartment (1960)
3) Sunset Blvd. (1950)
4) Some Like It Hot (1959)
5) Five Graves to Cairo (1943)
6) The Lost Weekend (1945)
7) Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
8) The Front Page (1974)
9) The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)
The film opens in a bleak, bitter rainstorm – one of those mighty skyward torrents that makes us drought-stricken Australians green with envy – where three men are sheltering in the ruins of a gatehouse. Three days previously, the oldest of the three, Woodcutter (Takashi Shimura), discovered the body of a man in the woods, and has recently returned from a police inquiry. The coarse, unkempt Commoner (Kichijiro Ueda) demands to hear the remainder of the Woodcutter's story, and so he recounts three "versions" of the shocking rape/murder, told from the perspective of the Bandit (Toshirô Mifune), the husband (Masayuki Mori) and the wife (Machiko Kyô), each story differing substantially from the other two. The existence of subjectivity, it seems, has permanently obscured any chances of ever knowing the absolute "truth" of the incident, with each perspective – perhaps deliberately, perhaps subconsciously – distorting the truth to conform to their own interests. It is revealed that even the seemingly-passive observer, Woodcutter, has his own reasons for adjusting the facts, this final revelation almost permanently denting the honest Priest's (Minoru Chiaki) belief in the goodness of Mankind.
After portraying a modest, tentative rookie detective in Kurosawa's Stray Dog, Toshirô Mifune is an absolute revelation as the notorious Tajômaru. Regardless of the specific version of events, Mifune unequivocally dominates the screen, his maniacal energy and frenzied cackle certain to imprint on your mind. The basis for the film was derived from two stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, with "Rashomon" providing the setting, and "In a Grove" supplying the characters and plot. The flashback components of the story unfold under the dappled light of the trees, and, on several occasions, Miyagawa films the Sun directly through the leaves of the forest canopy, perhaps representative of the "light of truth" that is being obscured by the inherent dishonesty and selfishness in Man {personified in the selfish Commoner}. Of course, Kurosawa couldn't bring himself to end the film in such a pessimistic fashion, and the Woodcutter redeems his previous deception by offering to care for an abandoned newborn baby discovered in the gatehouse. As the rainstorm ceases, and the glorious sunlight once again begins to beam down upon the lands, the Priest finally regains his faith in the goodness to be found in a man's heart.
Humphrey Bogart is, of course, the definitive version of the film-noir hero, exhibiting handsomeness, toughness and always remaining in full control of the situation. Though his character is basically the same as his Sam Spade from The Maltese Falcon (1941), this was the only occasion on which Bogart portrayed Chandler's popular character Philip Marlowe {who, notably, has also been played by Dick Powell and Robert Mitchum}. Though Marlowe is allowed to entertain a variety of seductive women, via some surprisingly-scandalous double entendre dialogue, it is with future-wife Lauren Bacall that the chemistry really sizzles {the couple would be married by the time of the film's release, and would co-star in numerous subsequent pictures}. Considering I had been rather disappointed with the pair's chemistry in Key Largo (1948), it was a real pleasure to witness the sparks really flying this time, most memorably in a sexually-suggestive horse-racing dialogue sequence, which was re-shot later to capitalise on the pair's popularity following 
The Big Sleep is one of the most rawly-entertaining hard-boiled detective thrillers I've seen, an indecipherable jumble of murders and low-lifes that both acknowledges its incomprehensibility and accepts it {indeed, the characters each seem as baffled as we are}. Various important characters never appear on screen, while others turn up already dead, and more still only survive long enough to divulge a vital clue. Considering the dominance of the Productive/Hays Code during the 1940s, it's surprising that much of the content of the film was allowed to remain intact. Aside from the sexual innuendo, the plot also contains veiled references to pornography, drug use and homosexuality. Perhaps the film's ultra-complicated plot also served as the picture's saving grace, with censors apparently too bewildered with the mystery to notice what was actually being implied by Bogart and his various female companions. However, the one most important question has yet to be asked: where on Earth did Howard Hawks manage to find so many good-lookin' dames?!
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Intertwined within this darkly-themed tale of obsession and prejudice is a somewhat awkwardly-placed romance between Martin and Laurie Jorgensen (Vera Miles), one that belongs in a lesser Western to this one. The selection of eccentric supporting characters, including those played by Ward Bond, Hank Worden and Ken Curtis, certainly provide some amusement for the audience, but ultimately detract from the murky themes that comprise the heart of the story, of Ethan’s endless search to retrieve his niece from the Comanches; or, otherwise, to purge her “pollution” through murder. As far as Weste
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