The Apartment [Collector's Edition]

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

Widely regarded as a comedy in 1960, The Apartment seems more melancholy with each passing year. Jack Lemmon plays C.C. Baxter, a go-getting office worker who loans his tiny apartment to his philandering superiors for their romantic trysts. He runs into trouble when he finds himself sharing a girlfriend (Shirley MacLaine) with his callous boss (Fred MacMurray). Director/co-writer Billy Wilder claimed that the idea for The Apartment stemmed from a short scene in the 1945 romantic drama Brief Encounter in which the illicit lovers (Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson) arrange a rendezvous in a third person's apartment. Wilder was intrigued about what sort of person would willingly vacate his residence to allow virtual strangers a playing field for hanky panky. His answer to that question wound up winning 6 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. The Apartment was adapted by Neil Simon and Burt Bacharach into the 1969 Broadway musical Promises, Promises. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 1
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 (Cinemascope)
• Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital Mono
• Encoding: NTSC
• Screen: Black and White, Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV
• Subtitle: Spanish, English
• Features:
  • cc
  • Audio commentary from Bruce Block - film producer and historian
  • Inside the Apartment documentary
  • Magic time: the art of Jack Lemmon

AWARDS

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

•     Won Best Black and White Art Direction - 1960 (Edward Boyle)
•     Won Best Director - 1960 (Billy Wilder)
•     Won Best Editing - 1960 (Dan Mandell)
•     Won Best Original Screenplay - 1960 (I.A.L. Diamond, Billy Wilder)
•     Won Best Picture - 1960 (Billy Wilder)
•     Nominated Best Actor - 1960 (Jack Lemmon)
•     Nominated Best Actress - 1960 (Shirley MacLaine)
•     Nominated Best Black and White Art Direction - 1960 (Alexandre Trauner)
•     Nominated Best Black and White Cinematography - 1960 (Joseph La Shelle)
•     Nominated Best Sound - 1960 (Gordon Sawyer)
•     Nominated Best Supporting Actor - 1960 (Jack Kruschen)

• American Film Institute

•     Won 100 Greatest American Movies - 1998

• British Academy of Film and Television Arts

•     Won Best Film - Any Source - 1960 (Billy Wilder)
•     Won Best Foreign Actor - 1960 (Jack Lemmon)
•     Won Best Foreign Actress - 1960 (Shirley MacLaine)

• Directors Guild of America

•     Won Best Director - 1960 (Billy Wilder)

• Hollywood Foreign Press Association

•     Won Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comed - 1960 (Jack Lemmon)
•     Won Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Com - 1960 (Shirley MacLaine)
•     Won Best Picture - Comedy - 1960
•     Nominated Best Director - 1960 (Billy Wilder)

• Library of Congress

•     Won U.S. National Film Registry - 1993

• National Board of Review

•     Nominated Best Picture - 1960

• New York Film Critics Circle

•     Won Best Director - 1960 (Billy Wilder)
•     Won Best Picture - 1960
•     Won Best Screenplay - 1960 (I.A.L. Diamond, Billy Wilder)

• Venice International Film Festival

•     Won Volpi Cup for Best Actress - 1960 (Shirley MacLaine)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Director:

  Billy Wilder

• Producer:

  Billy Wilder

• Screenwriter:

  I.A.L. Diamond, Billy Wilder

• Cinematographer:

  Joseph La Shelle

• Composer (Music Score):

  Adolph Deutsch

• Editor:

  Dan Mandell

• Art Director:

  Alexandre Trauner

• Associate Producer:

  I.A.L. Diamond, Doane Harrison

• Set Designer:

  Edward Boyle

• Sound/Sound Designer:

  Fred Lau

• Makeup:

  Harry Ray

• Special Effects:

  Milt Rice

• First Assistant Director:

  Hal W. Polaire

• Production Manager:

  Allen K. Wood

• Costumes Supervisor:

  Irene Caine

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, Rovi