The Apartment

Please note the purpose of this blog is to discuss established classics that I've never seen. As such, the following is laden with spoilers.

Why So Long?

 
Is it just me or does it just never seem to be on? Billy Wilder's other big hits, Some Like It Hot and Double Indemnity seem to be on TCM roughly every six months. This doesn't even seem to get an outing over Christmas, which is odd given that it's set during the festive period. And of course, it goes without saying that I don't know anyone who owns the DVD, otherwise I'd definitely have had it watched by now.

And? 

Where do I even begin? I know where I'll end. How does one begin to put into words just how good this film is. Holiday-season comedy? Manhattan-ite riff on the cocktails and affairs of Peyton Place? Savage take-down of the empty promises of capitalism? Yes, yes and yes. I think ultimately the power of the film lies in something very simple though, its delivery. We know from the outset how this film will end, but if you think you can predict how we're going to get there - you've quite the surprise coming to you.

Lemmon plays C.C. Baxter, a "company man" back when that was still a thing in the US. Trapped in his 9-to-5 and a slave to the idea that professional advancement will mean personal happiness. It's clear that this was something to be pitied back in 1960. Oddly enough this is one of the things about the film that hasn't aged well. The idea that I could clock in at nine, leave and five and be at my Manhattan apartment after a twenty minute walk is something a millennial like me can only dream of. C.C. Baxter should try commuting on the M50 twice a day. Sorry, I'm getting sidetracked. So, Lemmon, bachelor boy that he is spends his days organizing for various executives at his company to make use of his apartment for their affairs. All in the hope that this boot-licking will advance his career. As you would expect, Lemmon soon meets a woman, this one happens to look an awful lot like Shirley MacLaine. Of course, its not long before Lemmon wants to make use of his own apartment but things in cinema are never that simple. 

 

Both Lemmon and MacLaine's character are all-in on the promises that post-war capitalism has sold them. For Lemmon its the idea that if he works hard enough and charms the right people then he'll achieve promotion and through promotion lies happiness and acceptance. The company is meant to be his mistress and his family - an idea a lot of companies would be only too willing for you to embrace - it didn't occur to me until after the end credits but Lemmon doesn't appear to have a family. MacLaine has a family but she's the unwed sister, trying to land herself a husband but has found instead that her fate is to be strung along but a series of other people's. Quick hook-ups in apartments and quick drinks in dive bars, the man waxes about how she's everything his wife isn't, whilst his eyes drop to his watch, lest he miss that last train. MacLaine is great in this role, it requires her to take the simple "attractive-foil" role to some dark places, certainly darker than one would expect from a film made in 1960.

This is a film for people who can relate to that sense of alienation, even if just in part. That sense that everyone else seems to have bought into and is succeeding at something, a something that leaves you cold. A film for anyone who's ever wandered home alone to an empty house for a holiday period, or even just a weekend. A film from a man who truly knew what it was like to feel like this, against his own wishes. I could go on waxing lyrical about this film, for one thing the set design is just absurdly good - look at that shot above, how fantastic is that?

 

"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.."

 

 

 

But I said I knew where I would end and it could only be one place, with a nod to the main man himself. I know I'm not exactly advancing into new critical realms by praising Jack Lemmon's acting but to quote a close friend, the man had soul and the camera knew it. Restraining those exaggerated comic turns he used in Some Like It Hot  just a year earlier, Lemmon allows his eyes to do the work for so much of this film. There's a heart and warmth to the man that few have ever had, this film owes a lot of its success to his turn here.

Will You Be Watching It Again? 

Oh yes - this is definitely one of those ones I'll be forcing my daughter to sit through as soon as she's old enough. This Christmas? Maybe a bit too soon.

Has Any Light Been Shone on Some Heretofore Unknown Bit of Pop Culture?

The overdose scene from Almost Famous! Okay so it's not exactly a nod as it is outright stealing but to give Cameron Crowe is due, he say as much.