Billy Wilder month: The Apartment

A retrospective by Brooks Rich

For a film that won Best Picture and Best Picture, as well as three other Academy Awards, I don't think Billy Wilder's 1960 film The Apartment is as well remembered as it should be. I am sure it might not play as well to a modern audience, especially with some of the attitudes of the '60s in full display in the film, but I still really like it and it actually is condemning the sexual hierarchy of '60s corporate America.

Jack Lemmon plays C.C. Baxter, a mild mannered employee at a big insurance company in New York City. He has a deal going with several executives in his company where he loans out his apartment to them so they have somewhere to take their mistresses, mostly women from the office. C.C.'s neighbors think he is a playboy as they see and hear women coming in and out of his apartment but in reality he spends his nights either at work or wandering the streets.

What works about this film is what I said earlier, the film does not approve of the behavior of these men in power. And yes at the start of the film Baxter enabling them in exchange for a promotion but he eventually does come around and condemns them. It's a fascinating look at the sexual politics of the time and it's refreshing to see men like this get their comeuppance in a film from this time period.

At it's heart though The Apartment is a romantic comedy as CC begins to have feelings for an elevator operator in the building played by Shirley MacLaine. There is a problematic moment between them when he admits to looking up her insurance file, that's called stalking, CC, and she laughs it off. But the film moves past it and CC is likable through the rest of the movie.

Again I don't know if this film has aged as well as some others of the time but I do think it's worth a look. It has it's charms and Lemmon is fantastic as always. I think it's worth watching at least once.

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