The raucous bar where Baxter consumes an unrealistic number of martinis (about 14 olives in the circle when he's done) and picks up the blond gal who asks about Castro. It looks like a classic Manhattan bar rather than a created set, but maybe they fooled me. Anybody know?
shareThere used to be hundreds of bars like that in NYC when this film was made; now there are only dozens.
That said, I'm guessing that that particular scene was filmed on a set in LA.
@jpg: I was wrong. The bar where that scene was filmed is a real New York one: the Emerald Inn on Columbus at 69th. But if you want to see it before it disappears, you have 62 days -it closes at the end of April.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/sad-eyes-await-the-last-g uinness-at-a-columbus-ave-pub/
(And it would have been right around the corner from Baxter's apartment.)
I had the pleasure of attending two birthday parties at the Emerald back in 2008 and '09. Very friendly atmosphere, but not a lot of leg room once it got crowded (as in the film).
"May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?"
I think a Billy Wilder biographer said the exterior of the Chinese restaurant was a re-dressed...New York City barbershop.
hmmm, I wouldn't trust that info without additional verification. In 1960, it would have made much more sense from technical and financial perspectives to recreate the bar on a Hollywood set than to try filming a complex scene in such a claustrophobic space.
For example, while it would appear that Hitchcock filmed the restaurant scenes in Vertigo in the real Ernie's, he simply recreated (and rearranged) Ernie's on a set.
hmmm, did you read the link, or my original post, or are you just being contrary?
I read both, but newspapers sometimes get it wrong. If they built an exact replica of the bar as a set, someone could have assumed they actually filmed in the bar, but I'm just saying that it doesn't seem likely tey would have done it that way in 1960.
shareQuite right. The interior is all wrong. It is definitely NOT the Emerald.
shareJust to set things straight, once and for all; none of The Apartment was filmed in Manhattan, not even the scenes on the streets. All of these sets were the creations of the brilliant art director, Alexander Trauner, and they were built on sound stages on the old Goldwyn lot, on Formosa Avenue off Santa Monica Boulevard, in West Hollywood.
shareWrong. ONE, very brief shot of Lemmon in front of the apartment IS authentic, and the shots in Central Park at night.
shareTHat was typical at the time, a small amount of location shooting outdoors, but mostly shot on Hollywood sets.
shareI stand half corrected. I agree about Central Park, but I'm not sure what you're referring to about the apartment, since that building was a set at the Goldwyn Studio.
share