Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18566 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-04-01
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French, Spanish
• Subtitled in: French, Spanish
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 125 minutes

From Amazon.co.uk
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

Amazon.com essential video
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 unsavory 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 C.C. 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 humored 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 longtime collaborator I.A.L. Diamond). --Robert Abele

Review
Billy Wilder always liked to thread a strong streak of cynicism through his comedies, and he rarely made a film with a darker undertow than The Apartment. The effervescent comic charm of Jack Lemmon and quirky beauty of Shirley MacLaine give the film a palatable sweetness (while she would be given more glamorous treatment in later films, MacLaine was never more adorable than she was here), but they sugarcoat a very bitter pill in what is ultimately a story about moral accountability (and the lack thereof) in American business. While the film starts off as a naughty-for-its-time sex comedy about sad sack C.C. Baxter (Lemmon) who discovers he can curry the favor of his many bosses by letting them use his apartment for romantic indiscretions, it takes a more serious turn when we get to know Fran Kubelik (MacLaine), an elevator operator with precious little self-esteem. While most of the women Baxter's superiors lure to the tiny den of seduction look like brassy bar girls who've been this route before and know what they're doing, Kubelik is at heart a sweet (if disappointed) girl who desperately wants to be loved and who has made the mistake of falling for the duplicitous J.D. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray), whose callous indifference to the agony he inflicts falls just short of horrifying. (Anyone who grew up watching MacMurray on My Three Sons may be shocked to see how slimy he is in this role.) Ultimately, Baxter and Kubelik seem like two innocents stranded in a corrupt world, and what's most remarkable is not that they finally end up together, but that they both survive the experience intact -- and that Wilder is able to wring so many laughs out of a story that runs so close to tragedy. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Customer Reviews

They Should All be Like This
Wouldn't it be great if all movies were this good? This funny? This wise? This clever? This heartfelt? This true? My favorite Jack Lemmon movie. He plays a perfect schmuck who discovers himself. My favorite Shirley MacLaine movie. She plays a sweet but wounded modern girl who wises up. My favorite Billy Wilder movie. A perfect ear for dialogue and eye for mannerisms in his adopted country. Fred McMurray turns in a perfect performance as a shameless cad. No reason not to own this on dvd.

A Must See Classic
A fantastic movie from beginning to end. Top notch writing and acting. You will not be disappointed.

"I love you, Miss Kubelik."
Buddy Baxter (Jack Lemmon) is a meek and mild nobody in an enormous insurance company who has an "arrangement" with his superiors: They can use his apartment to entertain their ladyfriends in exchange for recommendations for his promotion. The deal works out fine, until he discovers that his big boss (Fred MacMurray)'s girlfriend is the object of his own affection, elevator operator Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine).

"The Apartment" is a quiet, character-driven comedy about shady dealings in the world of big business, with just enough touching dramatic scenes to tug at your heart, and it won the 1960 Best Picture Oscar, thanks to the excellent cast and honest script. Nobody played the Everyman character as well as Lemmon. He's involved in an unsavory situation, but is so sweet, likeable, and noble that you really care about him. MacLaine gives an uncharacteristically subdued and thoughtful performance, and MacMurray is perfect as philandering paramour. The beautiful title tune is one of the loveliest movie love themes ever. The subject matter was considered somewhat racy back then, but now it would probably be rated PG. A clever, sweet, and entertaining movie.