The Apartment

[Scottcarberry 13]

The Apartment is one of those films that I kinda dragged my feet into seeing and by the time I was a 1/3 of the way through, I was struck by just how engaged I was. It certainly is filled with infuriating characters and every time those stupid men, Fred MacMurray, Ray Walston, etc, we’re on screen, I just wanted to punch them out. Of course, this is the point. I’ve always liked Jack Lemmon but I adore this performance. Shirley MacClaine, straight up mesmerized me. I couldn’t see enough of her!!! I hung on her every word. Holy shit! I just realized that I was Jack Lemmon’s character, too! 
It’s remarkable that a film from 1960, that deals with sexual and class politics so bluntly shares a decade in which those politics will finally be faced by a generation that refutes and attempts to dismantle them. Good on Billy Wilder! And before I’m done, I wanna shout out the cinematography. I really felt these spaces. 
Thank you, Paul and Amy for creating a place for us film nerds to open our eyes wider and become the cinephiles that we all hope to be.

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

I loved this movie when I first saw it back in high school, but since then I've heard more than a few negative opinions on it, much along the lines of the negative reviews Amy read off in the podcast episode: that CC Baxter is just too much of a cowardly schlub to root for and therefore the happy ending feels too false and cynical. So I was a bit wary going into this revisit.

I can see where those criticisms are coming from (Baxter definitely embodies a lot of the characteristics of what we've now come to know as the false "nice guy," the guy who pretends to be nice but is actually frustrated and resentful that women won't sleep with him), but by the end I thought the movie had pretty beautifully sidestepped them. I think the movie is about precisely that: a guy who thinks he's a "nice guy" but comes to realize over the course of the film that he's not actually helping anyone with his niceness. He's become a doormat. Only after he finally quits his job and starts packing to move out of his apartment is he truly ready to receive Fran's admiration. The other nice thing is that this also works from the female lead's perspective: Fran Kubelik is also a "nice" person who is not doing herself or anyone else any favors for just going along with whatever Sheldrake wants her to do. She's trapped in a bad relationship because she lacks respect for herself, much like Baxter. Only once she's willing to stand up and leave that is she ready to try starting a potentially healthy relationship.

The other thing I love about the ending is that I don't think it's framed as "happily ever after." It's presented as a new beginning, after midnight on New Year's Eve. The last line is so memorable because it also represents a reset, and two reborn people just taking a chance on each other (over a card game, a game of chance): "Shut up and deal."  It's not asking you to buy this as a romance for the ages, just a positive step. This movie seems to have inspired a lot of modern rom-coms (When Harry Met Sally seems to have lifted the ending almost wholesale, just with a gender swap), but most of them don't have the same depth of character and theme this one does, nor are they willing to go to the same dark places The Apartment goes to. But of course, you can't have rebirth without going to a dark place first.

[AlmostAGhost 2718]

So where do we all come down on ranking the Wilder movies on the list?

For me, it's pretty easy:

1. Double Indemnity

2. The Apartment

3. Sunset Boulevard

4. Some Like It Hot

And I'd probably knock the bottom two of the AFI list. 

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

1. Double Indemnity

2. Some Like It Hot

3. Sunset Boulevard

4. The Apartment

Keep all four.

[bleary 333]

1. Sunset Boulevard
2. Some Like It Hot
3. The Apartment
4. Double Indemnity

I'm okay with keeping all four.

[ol' eddy wrecks 212]

1. Sunset Boulevard

2. The Apartment

3. Double Indemnity

4. Some Like it Hot

I still don't really think that much of Some Like it Hot.

The other three are in that vague range, "pretty good. Wouldn't feel bad seeing them on a best-of list, but I wouldn't say they're slam dunks. Feels weird seeing all three."

[ol' eddy wrecks 212]

2 hours ago, sycasey 2.0 said:

I think the movie is about precisely that: a guy who thinks he's a "nice guy" but comes to realize over the course of the film that he's not actually helping anyone with his niceness. He's become a doormat. Only after he finally quits his job and starts packing to move out of his apartment is he truly ready to receive Fran's admiration. The other nice thing is that this also works from the female lead's perspective: Fran Kubelik is also a "nice" person who is not doing herself or anyone else any favors for just going along with whatever Sheldrake wants her to do. She's trapped in a bad relationship because she lacks respect for herself, much like Baxter. Only once she's willing to stand up and leave that is she ready to try starting a potentially healthy relationship.

I prefer thinking of it as, the guy who thinks he's nice, tries to be nice, but actually causes a lot of harm. Whether that's some commentary on being "a good German," I guess could be a thing (given Wilder's background). Though I'm quite content without taking it that far.

I do think the end is a little too Pat and dry. Sheldrake is unrealistically obtuse (even if he doesn't clue in that Baxter likes her, I think most people wouldn't want someone who attempted suicide under such conditions to be brought back to their apartment under the same conditions).

I also think the ending would be stronger if they didn't get back together/yaddy, yaddy, yaddy. 

The broken mirror line always gets me though. The strength of this movie really is McClane's character. Which I don't think is so much her also trying to please, but rather just being stuck/subject to her emotions no matter how much she hates them.

[ol' eddy wrecks 212]

I'd also like to mention the documentary series The Story of Film: an Odyssey* (I always get the second word wrong - apologies if I did so again here).

It's on Hulu these days.

But one of the early (silent film) episodes, shows the succession of office shots from The Crowd, to The Apartment, to The Trial. (I still haven't seen The Crowd, though it's one of those - I'd like to).  Just calling it out because I really like that shot in The Apartment and The Trial.

*: Disclosure, I started it years ago, only got a few episodes in, and started it up again recently and haven't yet finished. 

[phyzzi 28]

Fred MacMurray was so popular that the superhero Captain Marvel (SHAZAM) was modeled after him. Once you see it, you can't unsee it.

[Blast Hardcheese 636]

During this episode, Paul asks why The Apartment was never remade. It kind of was, actually: the movie Loser (2001) is a loose adaptation of The Apartment set on a NYC college campus. Jason Biggs plays the hapless, kindhearted “loser” who lends out the veterinary hospital he lives in (???) to curry favor with the hard-partying, pot smoking and womanizing hipster douche bags he wants so desperately to impress. Mena Suvari plays the Fran Kubelik analog while Greg Kinnear portrays a pretentious english professor in the Sheldrake mold who abuses his position of power in order to sleep with Suvari’s character, much to Bigg’s character’s heartbroken chagrin (sorry, I couldn’t remember any of the character’s names in this movie; like almost every remake, it’s not very good).

There’s also Michael Showalter’s The Baxter, which is a spiritual cousin to The Apartment, and stars Showalter, Elizabeth Banks, Paul Rudd, Michelle Williams, Peter Dinklage, Justin Theroux, and most of the cast of The State.

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

13 hours ago, Blast Hardcheese said:

During this episode, Paul asks why The Apartment was never remade. It kind of was, actually: the movie Loser (2001) is a loose adaptation of The Apartment set on a NYC college campus. Jason Biggs plays the hapless, kindhearted “loser” who lends out the veterinary hospital he lives in (???) to curry favor with the hard-partying, pot smoking and womanizing hipster douche bags he wants so desperately to impress. Mena Suvari plays the Fran Kubelik analog while Greg Kinnear portrays a pretentious english professor in the Sheldrake mold who abuses his position of power in order to sleep with Suvari’s character, much to Bigg’s character’s heartbroken chagrin (sorry, I couldn’t remember any of the character’s names in this movie; like almost every remake, it’s not very good).

There’s also Michael Showalter’s The Baxter, which is a spiritual cousin to The Apartment, and stars Showalter, Elizabeth Banks, Paul Rudd, Michelle Williams, Peter Dinklage, Justin Theroux, and most of the cast of The State.

Loser is a pretty bad movie, and pretty stunning that Amy Heckerling made it. IMO it's the version of The Apartment that actually endorses all the terrible "nice guy" behaviors I was worried about finding in the older movie. It has characters who just kind of have stuff happen to them, rather than characters who are making their own active choices like in the Wilder film.

But yeah, it's instructive as a way of seeing why small changes can make the same story work well or work poorly.

[taylor anne photo 11311]

I have to agree with Amy that the main reason I want to keep Some Like It Hot is for the Marilyn representation. But if we could replace it with the obviously better Gentlemen Prefer Blondes then I'm all for dropping SLIH.