The Apartment (1960)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
C. C. Baxter	Jack Lemmon	½
Fran Kubelik	Shirley MacLaine	½
Jeff D. Sheldrake	Fred MacMurray
Joe Dobisch	Ray Walston
Dr. Dreyfuss	Jack Kruschen
Al Kirkeby	David Lewis
Mrs. Margie MacDougall	Hope Holiday
Sylvia	Joan Shawlee
Mrs. Mildred Dreyfuss	Naomi Stevens
Karl Matuschka	Johnny Seven
Blonde in the bar	Joyve Jameson

Review

Billy Wilder's The Apartment is a neat, clever and sensitive romantic comedy about a low-level company clerk (Lemmon) who in a bid to climb the corporate ladder lends out his apartment to his execs and their mistresses, while his own love-life is limited to exchanging cordial lines with the young and perky elevator operator (MacLaine). The assured form and a bubbly Jack Lemmon makes the film instantly captivating, as we're effectively transported back to a booming New York City in the early stages of second-wave feminism. The preface is among the best ever in this genre, and even as the plot thickens and the film turns half into a screwball comedy, Wilder keeps his composure and sense of direction. For instance, the moral implications never turn into moralizing, and we get to pass our own judgements. Wilder is more interested in exploring the
mechanisms at work than evaluate them, and this ensures that the film remains relevant even today, and also makes the Sheldrake character an interesting (if somewhat anachronistic) character study. The only thing lacking here, despite superb performances by both Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, is a little more heat and spark between them. Lemmon is a sheer delight, even if his nervous babble occasionally does threaten to overdo it a little, and MacLaine's sensitive performance is ten years ahead of its time. The Apartment won five Oscars, among others for the superb set decoration. It was the final black-and-white film to win the Best Picture Oscar until The Artist in 2011.