Wonkette Movie Night: The Apartment
'Ya know, I used to live like Robinson Crusoe; I mean, shipwrecked among 8 million people. And then one day I saw a footprint in the sand, and there you were.'
Happy 200th movie!
When Billy Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond were writing the screenplay for The Apartment, the original idea behind it was Noël Coward’s Brief Encounter, the subject being adultery but Wilder couldn’t make the film he had visualized because of the Hays Code.
After the success of Some Like It Hot, Wilder and Diamond wanted to do their next movie with Jack Lemon. It was now 1960 and Wilder was no longer restricted from making the movie about illicit affairs he had imagined from the start. Expanding on the original concept they added to the story from real life.
In December of 1951, producer Walter Wanger shot talent agent Jennings Lang in the dick, believing he was having a romantic affair with his wife, Little Women actress Joan Bennett. Lang survived and Wanger spent four months in prison. Joan Bennett denied an affair but hers was the only career that was damaged by the scandal. She said later, “I might as well have pulled the trigger myself.” She eventually won recognition for her acting on Dark Shadows with an Emmy nomination.
The other bit of real life that the two writers used was the sad story of Diamond’s friend — a man whose girlfriend had killed herself after he broke up with her.
Content Warning: The Apartment does address the issue of suicide, as an attempt, not a completed act.
The finished screenplay produced a critically well-regarded and financially successful film. Although critic Hollis Alpert considered it “a dirty fairy tale” and some women went so far as to chastise Fred MacMurray in the street for making a “dirty filthy movie” with one of the women whacking him with her purse.
The Apartment earned twice its $3 million budget in 1960 and was the eighth top grossing film of that year. It went on to receive 10 nominations at the 1961 Academy Awards, winning five, including for Best Director and Best Motion Picture.
A Broadway musical, Promises, Promises was based on the film, written by Neil Simon, with music from Burt Bacharach; it debuted in 1968 starring Jerry Orbach and was nominated for eight Tonys, winning two. A very young Jerry is a talented singer: Watch his performance at the 1969 Tony Awards.
The Apartment stars Shirley MacLaine, Jack Lemmon, Fred MacMurray, Hope Holiday, Edie Adams, Ray Walston, Jack Kruschen, Naomi Stevens, David Lewis, and Joan Shawlee. Directed by Billy Wilder.
The Apartment is available with subscription on MGM+. Free with ads on Tubi, Pluto TV and Plex.
To make requests and see the movie lists and schedules go to WonkMovie.
The animated short is Ice Merchants from João Gonzalez and The New Yorker.
Next week we start March with The Mole People (MST3K version.)
Here is the full schedule for March:
𝐁𝐎𝐍𝐔𝐒 𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐀:
The film was lauded by Soviet-bloc critics as an indictment of the American system and a story that could only have happened in a capitalistic city like New York. At a dinner honoring him in East Berlin, Billy Wilder said the movie "could happen anywhere, in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Rome, Paris, London." When Wilder said the one place it could not have happened was Moscow, the East Germans broke into thunderous applause and cheers. When the ovation died down, Wilder continued: "The reason this picture could not have taken place in Moscow is that in Moscow nobody has his own apartment." The remark was met with grim silence.
𝐁𝐎𝐍𝐔𝐒 𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐀:
Something to watch for at the beginning.
To create the effect of a vast sea of faces laboring grimly and impersonally at their desks in the huge insurance company office, designers Alexandre Trauner and Edward G. Boyle devised an interesting technique. Full-sized actors sat at the desks in the front and children dressed in suits were used at tiny desks toward the rear, followed by even smaller desks with cut-out figures operated by wires. It gave the effect of a much larger space than could have been achieved in the limited studio space.