The latest stop on my Epic Film Quest brought me to 1960, with Billy Wilder’s five-award-winning Dramedy The Apartment, starring Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray. I am pleased to report that The Winz is giving this moviefilm two very enthusiastic thumbs up!
Jack Lemmon plays C.C. Baxter, an office worker for a NYC insurance company. He’s trying to climb up the corporate ladder and wants to impress his higher ups, so what does he do? He rents his apartment out so they can bang their mistresses, of course! (Now, I watch Mad Men and all, but is that all people did in the 60’s? Cheat on their wives? Damn!) Baxter finds out that his crush, elevator operator Fran (MacLaine) is his boss’s mistress, except she doesn’t know she’s only one in a long line of former mistresses. She winds up at the apartment, Baxter finds out, and yada, yada, yada.
This is my second run-in with Ms. MacLaine on my Epic Film Quest (the first being 1983’s Terms of Endearment, which I also loved!). But The Apartment is MacLaine in her prime, and she was a fox! A total Betty. (In fact, Michelle Williams reminds me a bit of this younger MacLaine. Is that just me?) She’s a fantastic actress and one that has solidified a spot on my radar, thanks to this Quest. That’s what it’s all about, right?
And Lemmon! It was nice to see a non-Grumpy, non-Old Man version of this fella. My Jack Lemmon knowledge is embarrassing! I haven’t seen Some Like It Hot, The Odd Couple, or The Out-of-Towners! The China Syndrome? Shit. Is this quest of mine adding to my film history knowledge or just tacking on more homework for me to add to my Netflix queue? I already feel a tad…overwhelmed…with my decision to do this, but now there are so many other films to take on too! I’d better get a move on.
But back to The Apartment, the film was a great balancing act of Comedy and Drama, and must have been at least a little risque at the time, with all the philandering and sexytime references and such. The ending was also spot on, carrying the “will-they-won’t-they” tension between Baxter and Fran down to the very last second. Well-written, well-acted, well done.
The quest marches onward.
