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The Apartment [1960]


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Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review

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 unsavoury 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 CC 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 humoured 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 long-time collaborator I A L Diamond). --Robert Abele


Christmas movie time
Review date: 2008-07-11 Rating: 10 out of 10

The apartment is one of the essential Christmas movies along with the other black and white classics - It's a wonderful life, Miracle on 34th Street, Some like it hot and Scrooge. It's a fantastic film for a cold, dark December night and seems to work best at that time of year, just like The odd couple or Rear window work best in summer.

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Reviews


Cynical but romantic comedy, beautifully done
Review date: 2008-06-04 Rating: 10 out of 10

This movie manages to be funny, romantic and true. It's great entertainment and the acting and writing is superbly done. One of Billy Wilder's best, Jack Lemmon's too. Strongly recommended.

A Classic 1960s Love-Tangle Comedy-Drama
Review date: 2008-03-10 Rating: 10 out of 10

This is a classic film from the 1960s which deservedly won 5 Oscars (including Best Picture, Director and Screenplay ALL for Billy Wilder).

It is essentially a love comedy, but still manages to include some sinister undertones, to create a very entertaining story about a man attracted to another employee at the insurance company where he works, but where she is already involved with another man....

The lead actors, Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, beautifully portray their characters with verve and great emotion and there are several other contributors who add to the overall impact of the film.

Of course, the most influence factor is that of Wilder, who moves the plot along at a perfect pace and injects many moments of pure dramatic and comedic brilliance, courtesy of a faultless screenplay.

This DVD has an excellent picture quality, with only the occasional blemish appearing, and a clear soundtrack.

Wilder Comic Genius
Review date: 2007-09-06 Rating: 8 out of 10

The comic genius of Billy Wilder was never better illustrated than by this bitter sweet romantic comedy. It's focus ranges from the general with its' seering indictment of the corporate world to the particular and a wonderful exploration of the central characters's lives in the persons of Lemmon, MacLaine and MacMurray.

Lemmon's performance as the central "everyman" or John Doe character caught between career enhancement and love, is superb. MacLaine provides a wonderfully tragic heroine and McMurray is immoral corporate America personified.

Laughter freely mingles with tears as Lemmon struggles to assert his identity against a rising tide of corruption and infidelity. It's warm, it's funny, it's wonderfully evocative but most of all it makes you consider the ethics of the corporate world and their impact on society at large.

An all together superior romantic comedy



You can almost smell the evocative smell of the pasta...
Review date: 2007-05-29 Rating: 10 out of 10


Am not talking about Delia Smith... I watched this film when I was 12, and still love it.

The scenes were meant to be very cool and modern at the time the work was released, And, 37 years later on, amazingly, the film still is as just cool and modern, and the film now also has the air of romantic nostalgia.

Jack Lemmon is a great actor. He acts a meek young man in this film - a bit like a male Bridget Jones in 1960s, dare I say. But his acting is superb. Watch the short scene when he makes spaghetti with meat balls (very American). Even though this film is monochrome, you can almost smell the evocative smell of the pasta he is making.

This one is to be watched around Christmas with someone you love on a sofa in a warm room - not that I have done this yet...

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Jack Kruschen
Jack Lemmon
Fred MacMurray
Shirley MacLaine
Ray Walston

Creators:
Jack Lemmon (Primary Contributor)
Shirley MacLaine (Primary Contributor)

Director(s):

Recording label: MGM Entertainment
Manufacturer: MGM Entertainment
EAN: 5050070005417
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: Anamorphic, Black & White, Dubbed, PAL, Widescreen,
Release date: 2001-11-26
Number of discs: 1
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Audience rating: Parental Guidance
Region code: 2
Running time: 120 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1960-09-16
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: French (Dubbed)
Language: German (Dubbed)
Language: Italian (Dubbed)
Language: Spanish (Dubbed)

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