Billy Wilder Gift Set [4 Discs]

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 4
• Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1 (Vistavision), 2.35:1 (Cinemascope)
• Audio: Dolby Digital Stereo, Dolby Digital Surrond
• Encoding: NTSC
• Screen: Black and White
• Subtitle: Spanish, French
• Features:
  • Some Like It Hot - Nostalgic look back with Tony Curtis & Hosted by Maltin, Leonard
  • Memories from the Sweet Sues, the All-Girl featurette
  • Virtual Hall of Memories with 5 vignettes, featuring photos of Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Billy Wilder and Behind-the-scenes images
  • Original Pressbook Gallery
  • Original Theatrical Trailer
  • Billy Wilder Film trailers
  • The Apartment - Audio commentary from Bruce Block - Film Producer and Historian
  • Inside the Apartment documentary
  • Magic Time: The Art of Jack Lemmon
  • Kiss Me Stupid - Alternate scene
  • Original theatrical trailer

AWARDS

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

•     Won Best Supporting Actor - 1966 (Walter Matthau)
•     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)
•     Won Best Black and White Costume Design - 1959 (Orry-Kelly)
•     Nominated Best Black and White Art Direction - 1966 (Edward Boyle)
•     Nominated Best Black and White Cinematography - 1966 (Joseph La Shelle)
•     Nominated Best Original Screenplay - 1966 (I.A.L. Diamond, 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)
•     Nominated Best Actor - 1959 (Jack Lemmon)
•     Nominated Best Adapted Screenplay - 1959 (I.A.L. Diamond, Billy Wilder)
•     Nominated Best Black and White Art Direction - 1959 (Edward S. Haworth, Edward Boyle)
•     Nominated Best Black and White Cinematography - 1959 (Charles B. Lang)
•     Nominated Best Director - 1959 (Billy Wilder)

• 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)
•     Won Best Foreign Actor - 1959 (Jack Lemmon)
•     Nominated Best British Film - 1959 (Billy Wilder)

• Directors Guild of America

•     Won Best Director - 1960 (Billy Wilder)
•     Nominated Best Director - 1959 (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
•     Won Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comed - 1959 (Jack Lemmon)
•     Won Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Com - 1959 (Marilyn Monroe)
•     Won Best Picture - Comedy - 1959
•     Nominated Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comed - 1966 (Walter Matthau)
•     Nominated Best Director - 1960 (Billy Wilder)

• Library of Congress

•     Won U.S. National Film Registry - 1993
•     Won U.S. National Film Registry - 1988

• National Board of Review

•     Nominated Best Picture - 1960
•     Nominated Best Picture - 1959

• 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:

• Cast:

  
       Jack Lemmon - Harry Hinkle
       Jack Lemmon - C.C. Baxter
       Dean Martin - Dino
       Marilyn Monroe - Sugar Kane
       Tony Curtis - Joe/Josephine
       Shirley MacLaine - Fran Kubelik
       Walter Matthau - Willie Gingrich
       Kim Novak - Polly The Pistol
       Jack Lemmon - Jerry/Daphne
       Fred MacMurray - J.D. Sheldrake
       Ron Rich - Luther "Boom-Boom" Jackson
       Ray Walston - Orville J. Spooner
       Felicia Farr - Zelda "Lambchop" Spooner
       Cliff Osmond - Mr. Purkey
       George Raft - Spats Columbo
       Ray Walston - Mr. Joe Dobisch
       Edie Adams - Miss Olsen
       Pat O'Brien - Mulligan
       Cliff Osmond - Barney Millsap
       Judi West - Sandy Hinkle
       David Lewis - Mr. Al Kirkeby

• Director:

  Billy Wilder

• Producer:

  Billy Wilder

• Play Author:

  Anna Bonacci

• Screenwriter:

  I.A.L. Diamond, Billy Wilder

• Cinematographer:

  Charles B. Lang, Joseph La Shelle

• Composer (Music Score):

  Adolph Deutsch, Andre Previn

• Featured Music:

  George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter

• Editor:

  Dan Mandell, Arthur P. Schmidt

• Production Designer:

  Alexandre Trauner

• Art Director:

  Edward S. Haworth, Robert Luthardt, Alexandre Trauner

• Associate Producer:

  I.A.L. Diamond, Doane Harrison

REVIEWS:

• Possibly the best cross-dressing film of all time, Some Like It Hot is a testament to both the humor of hairy men in heels and Billy Wilder's ability to stretch a one-joke premise into a two-hour film. Still hilarious after all these years, Some Like It Hot was remarkably ahead of its time, providing both timeless laughs and sly gender commentary. The film also stands out as a classic example of the heights to which all-out farce can aspire, achieving an uncontrived giddiness through both plot manipulation and the finely tuned work of its performers. As the film's reluctantly dragged-up musicians, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis give almost flawless fish-out-of-water performances. Their frustrated befuddlement when confronted with the terrors of walking in heels or adjusting fake breasts still feels fresh and unforced, unlike the self-conscious posturing of other actors in subsequent drag films. As the aptly named Sugar Kane, Marilyn Monroe is at her bubble-headed, sexy best, her voluptuous sensuality providing a perfect foil for Lemmon and Curtis. One of Wilder's best films, Some Like It Hot retains its intergenerational appeal, proving that under the frothy icing of 1950s sex comedies lurked some very dense cake. Some Like It Hot remains one of the few films that can still make drag seem a novel and innovative subject. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
• Notable for contriving the first -- and one of the best -- pairings of Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, this acerbic, late-career Billy Wilder gem marries his penchant for hand-wringing morality plays with a dark, melancholy tone reminiscent of his glum masterpiece The Apartment, made six years earlier. The Fortune Cookie actually benefits from having a villain not quite as insidious as Fred MacMurray's J.D. Sheldrake: Matthau's affable shyster Willie Gingrich. Despite his unrepentant opportunism, Gingrich serves as a benevolent life force: If not for his less-than-airtight scam, Lemmon's Harry Hinckle would never be forced to own up to the havoc that only a meek wallflower like himself could create -- almost by default. The supporting cast is no less splendid, with the under-worked Judi West making a sly turn as the alternately world-weary and kittenish ex-wife who sees Hinckle as a renewed meal ticket, and the subdued Ron Rich as the impossibly selfless football star whose generosity almost does him in -- financially as well as professionally. Wilder's career was made up of films that heartbreakingly detailed the intersection of guilt and guile, and, in its own unassuming way, The Fortune Cookie is no exception. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
• Kiss Me, Stupid is one of several critical and commercial disappointments that tarnish Billy Wilder's later career. Reviewers chastised its reliance on stereotypes, as well as its archaic indoor scenery and filtered black-and-white photography. Audiences resisted the film's guileless approach (such as casting Dean Martin as a boozing rat packer) and cynical moral (that a couple may revive its love and its finances through infidelity). But it is the simplicity and coarseness of this picture that have left it memorable and even commendable. Kiss Me, Stupid is a precursor of such American films as Todd Solondz's Happiness and Neil LaBute's Your Friends & Neighbors -- movies that exploit paper-thin characters and unadorned filmmaking to develop an honesty often celebrated for being unpleasant. With Kiss Me, Stupid, Wilder does not hide behind the attractive fallibility of William Holden or Jack Lemmon. They may have been praised as appealing to the "everyman," but Martin and Ray Walston are every man -- a little too typical and a little too familiar. Their characters react predictably to each plot turn, and are thus too uncomplicated to have their behavior excused. They inhabit the unforgiving real world -- a fact emphasized by Wilder's drab living room backgrounds and his decision not to glamorize them in Technicolor. Kiss Me, Stupid is necessarily abrasive, understandably painful to watch, and brilliantly ahead of its time. ~ Aubry Anne D'Arminio, All Movie Guide
• 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
• {#Kiss Me, Stupid} is one of several critical and commercial disappointments that tarnish {$Billy Wilder}'s later career. Reviewers chastised its reliance on stereotypes, as well as its archaic indoor scenery and filtered black-and-white photography. Audiences resisted the film's guileless approach (such as casting {$Dean Martin} as a boozing rat packer) and cynical moral (that a couple may revive its love and its finances through infidelity). But it is the simplicity and coarseness of this picture that have left it memorable and even commendable. {#Kiss Me, Stupid} is a precursor of such American films as {$Todd Solondz}'s {#Happiness} and {$Neil LaBute}'s {#Your Friends & Neighbors} -- movies that exploit paper-thin characters and unadorned filmmaking to develop an honesty often celebrated for being unpleasant. With {#Kiss Me, Stupid}, {$Wilder} does not hide behind the attractive fallibility of {$William Holden} or {$Jack Lemmon}. They may have been praised as appealing to the "everyman," but {$Martin} and {$Ray Walston} are every man -- a little too typical and a little too familiar. Their characters react predictably to each plot turn, and are thus too uncomplicated to have their behavior excused. They inhabit the unforgiving real world -- a fact emphasized by {$Wilder}'s drab living room backgrounds and his decision not to glamorize them in Technicolor. {#Kiss Me, Stupid} is necessarily abrasive, understandably painful to watch, and brilliantly ahead of its time. ~ Aubry Anne D'Arminio, All Movie Guide
• {$Billy Wilder} always liked to thread a strong streak of cynicism through his comedies, and he rarely made a film with a darker undertow than {#The Apartment}. The effervescent comic charm of {$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: