[This Romantic Comedies in the Time of Social Distance series suggests good rom-coms to watch at home during our current crisis. Some are directly apropos and some will take you away from it all, but none of them suck.]
When I cite Billy Wilder's The Apartment as particularly apropos to our present moment, I could point out that it's all about the relationship between our workplaces and our homes, that it can make you feel better about not being in an office, and that watching Jack Lemmon get a cold, show up for work, and obliviously spew infection wherever he goes provides us with an object lesson in What Most of Us Didn't Know that's more blackly comedic than frightening. But really, I'm suggesting you watch The Apartment simply because it's one of the best romantic comedies ever made.
I shouldn't have to sell anyone on the charms of this Oscar-winning masterpiece (Best Picture, Direction, Screenplay, Editing, and Art Direction, 1960), so I'll just say: Man, it holds up, from its opening sequence to its famous, perfect last exchange of dialogue (with a last line rivaled only by Wilder and Diamond's own Some Like It Hot). So let yourself revel in a time when the best talents of Hollywood were at the top of their form, whether seasoned masters (Wilder was 54) or newly-established young stars (Shirley MacLaine: 26).
For gossip and inside info on their collaboration, these two clips featuring interviews with some participants are a fun font, plus a gem from Ms. MacLaine, and a word from Mr. Wilder on working with Lemmon, but you may want to take a gander at the movie first. Black and white rarely looked so good - and the same can be said of the picture's seemingly far away but not-so-innocent time.
Although it may seem rude and misogynist nowadays in some ways, THE APARTMENT is a sarcastic vaudeville, one of the masterpieces of Billy Wilder with the frenetic Jack Lemmon and the mischievous Shirley MacLaine. A critique of the alienation of labor, an hymn to freedom!
Posted by: Stephane Guero | April 30, 2020 at 04:06 AM