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June 2020: "The Apartment at 60" (And Psycho, Too) SPOILERS for Both Films

posted 4 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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There are a few "Psycho at 60" articles on the net this week. One of them is at a site called The Guardian. I read that article and found a headline link to ANOTHER article: "The Apartment at 60." So I read that, and I liked it. The article poses the question: "Is The Apartment Billy Wilder's Best Film?"

I'll answer that: yes. Yes it is. To me. And its connections to Psycho are part of that.

But first I'll pause for some outrage and "tut tutting." The Apartment? Wilder's best? Better than...Double Indemnity? Better than...Sunset Boulevard? Better than..The Lost Weekend? Better than...Some Like It Hot?

Let's stop at Some LIke it Hot. That came out the year before The Apartment, in the summer of 1959. And Some Like It Hot has the "rep" as "the greatest comedy ever made." The AFI put Some Like It Hot at the top of its comedy list, and Psycho at the top of its thriller list, and THEY only came out a year apart.

Indeed, Hitchcock and Wilder both kinda peaked in 1959 and 1960. North by Northwest and then Psycho for Hitch. Some Like it Hot and then The Apartment for Wilder. All four were summer movies(back long before the "summer special effects blockbuster.") All four pushed the envelope on sex(yes, NXNW too -- Grant and Saint on the train.) Psycho used its screamable shocks and ultra-violence to be the biggest hit of the four -- the biggest pushing of the envelope of the group. And yet: Psycho was linked to Some Like it Hot in its use of cross-dressing and sexual confusion. (With Tony Curtis, then-husband of Psycho's Janet Leigh, in a cross-dressing man-as-woman role first turned down by...Anthony Perkins!)

Some Like It Hot and The Apartment both star Jack Lemmon for Wilder -- he would become Wilder's favorite leading man. Some Like It Hot was the bigger hit -- but The Apartment won Best Picture, and Director(Wilder) and screenplay(Wilder, half of it)...The Apartment was more "prestige" than Some Like It Hot.

And BETTER than Some Like It Hot -- says I -- in one big way: The Apartment is much more emotionally gripping than Some Like It Hot, much deeper in what it has to say about the American "grind" and much more delicate a balance of comedy and drama.

The emotion of The Apartment is what puts it above the other Billy Wilder classics for me, but in a very special way: it is a 1960 movie and so I "connect" to it in a way different than to Double Indemnity(a 40's film) or Sunset Boulevard(a 1950 film and hence with one foot in the 40's, too.)

There's just something about that 50's/60s cusp. I was a little kid then, but I remember it with a certain wonder and nostalgia. Looking at it as a grown man,I see it as a "time of attempted change." Simply put, The Apartment(like Psycho of the same year) just feels more MODERN than the Billy Wilder films before it, a bit more able to take a look at what people are really like, what sex is really like, what love is really like. And in its own weird way, that goes for Psycho too. Come to think of it -- isn't Arbogast really more of a Billy Wilder character than an Alfred Hitchcock character? (Tough, urban, cynical, witty.)

Psycho and The Apartment are very "linked." Not only did they both come out in 1960, they both came out in JUNE of 1960(in NYC at least.) You could have seen Psycho one day and The Apartment the next day(or vice versa.) The fictional Roger Sterling(John Slattery) on Mad Men, DID.

Psycho and The Apartment were both in black and white in a year when most movies were in color(especially the epics like Spartacus and Exodus and The Alamo.)

And came Oscar time, when Psycho was nominated for only four Oscars(Director, Supporting Actress for Leigh, B/W Cinematography and B/W Art Direction)...The Apartment won three of those categories(Director -- Wilder bested Hitch; and the two B/W categories.)

One reason Hitchcock didn't beat Wilder(and Hedda Hopper wrote in a trade paper that SHE wanted Hitch to win that year) was that Psycho didn't get a Best Picture nomination. Which was criminal. That said, if a 1960 movie OTHER than Psycho had to win Best Picture...I'd say The Apartment is the right choice.

Psycho and The Apartment can and should only be matched up so far as it goes. Both made in 1960 -- they have the same basic clothing and hairstyles and car shapes, etc. Both being in black and white, they "feel" similar. And both films rather focus on "the little people" -- the struggling drones who work hard in dull jobs while other people are more rich and obnoxious(Fred MacMurray's Sheldrake in The Apartment; Frank Albertson's Cassidy in Psycho.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

At the center of The Apartment's power, I'd say, is Fred MacMurray as the villain of the piece, the "big boss" Sheldrake who is just as pleasant and befuddled as MacMurray in The Shaggy Dog and My Three Sons(which started in 1960) except...he's a psycho. The key to MacMurray's performance is that he is so evil he has no idea that he IS evil. At the end of the film, when he's telling his lover Shirley MacLaine about how that nebbish Jack Lemmon quit a big job that MacMurray had given him -- MacMurray simply can't UNDERSTAND why Lemmon would do that(because Lemmon's as decent as MacMurray is not), or why MacLaine would even care about Lemmon(turns out -- she realizes then and there -- she LOVES Lemmon. More than the rich MacMurray. And she leaves MacMurray and we can figure MacMurray will never really understand why.)

"The Apartment" is rather like "Its a Wonderful Life" and "The Shawshank Redemption" in that, you have to go through 80% of the film in abject emotional pain before that happy ending FINALLY comes at the end. (As James Stewart said of Its a Wonderful Life and the audience..."you have to earn that happy ending.") And its final line "Shut up and deal" is a nice classic doppelganger to the final line of Some Like It Hot, one year earlier("Well...nobody's perfect.")

I've always felt that, for a " comedy drama," The Apartment really isn't much of a comedy. There aren't big laughs in it. A comedy bit where Lemmon keeps waiting for Grand Hotel to start on his TV network movie -- but it never starts, there's always another commercial first -- seems rather rote and silly (TV movie shows were NEVER like that.) A scene of Lemmon trying over the phone to re-schedule the trysts of three married men over three nights in Lemmon's apartment is more tedious than funny. But I get it ..its 1960, those scenes were funny THEN. (Which means, alas -- the movie has dated. Much moreso than Psycho.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Actually I think the funniest bit belongs to Jack Kruschen as Lemmon's next-door apartment neighbor, a medical doctor living in a rather dumpy apartment building(?) The doc (all warm Jewish vocal mannerisms) has been hearing non-stop schtupping through his bedroom wall and thinks that Lemmon is a sexual superman("Some nights, you got a Twi-nite double header going on in dere.") And this being 1960, the doc also thinks that Lemmon is rather a sexual swine. The suspenseful irony: if the Doc learned what Lemmon's secret REALLY is(he's loaning out the apartment to married men for trysts), he'd REALLY detest Lemmon. As do we -- and the movie is really about Lemmon renouncing all that.

Jack Kruschen got a Best Supporting Actor nomination for The Apartment. Martin Balsam did not for Arbogast. I think that Arbogast is a more "dynamic" character than the doctor(less "schtick"), but in the end, Kruschen's character is a fine one. He goes from comic to dramatic when called upon to save MacLaine's life after a suicide attempt and he gives Lemmon the stern advice of a lifetime "Be a MENSCH." (A good man. Lemmon takes the advice.)

I'd give Martin Balsam the Best Supporting Actor nomination given to Chill Wills for The Alamo -- if only because Wills ran history's most egregious Oscar campaign("Pray for me to win like people prayed for the fighters at the Alamo to live,"..."I'm asking all my cousins to vote for me" -- to which Groucho Marx replied in a Variety ad: "Pleased to be your cousin. Am voting for Sal Mineo for Exodus.") The 1960 winner for Best Supporting Actor was Peter Ustinov for Spartacus. Fair enough -- he steals that movie, along with Charles Laughton.

But Balsam should have at least got a nomination.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I recommended The Apartment to a married couple and got back the report that they hated it "because Jack Lemmon was such a whimpering wimp in that thing." Fair enough. Jack Lemmon was interesting -- one of the biggest stars of the 60's, but, in retrospect, rather a neurotic, indeed wimpy kind of guy. That peaked with Felix in The Odd Couple and then REALLY peaked with his depressing failure in "Save the Tiger." His buddy Walter Matthau soon outdistanced Lemmon as a "guy" and likeable.

But in The Apartment, Lemmon is still kind of new and different, and we like him. He's a wimpering wimp at the beginning of the movie...but not at the end. He stands up to Sheldrake, he quits his job(that takes courage), and he goes all in professing his love for MacLaine(they never kiss in the entire movie, but still, he wins her heart.) Its one of the few times that the "Jack Lemmon schtick" was winning.

Shirley MacLaine. Recall that Hitchcock, the Lord of Blondes, gave Shirley MacLaine, a redhead, her screen debut (in the Trouble With Harry.) Hitch knew a unique personality when he saw it -- and Wilder in The Apartment rather perfected it. From The Apartment on, Shirley MacLaine was a big star in the 60's, one of the biggest.

In The Apartment, we certainly "get" MacLaine. She sees though MOST of Fred MacMurray's lies, but not all of them(he really WON'T divorce his wife for MacLaine.) She goes back to him(standing up a date with Lemmon), she almost kills herself over him(over THAT swine? How sad.) Horrible suspense at the end: MacMurray's wife wants to divorce HIM...so NOW he's available for MacLaine, but she doesn't know the truth. At film's end, much like Lemmon quits his job with MacMurray, MacLaine quits..MacMurray. And we could not be happier. Miss MacLaine earned HER Oscar nomination for the long, silent shot of her deciding to dump MacMurray for Lemmon -- we see her realize who she REALLY loves.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

If I'm going to take a time machine back to June of 1960 to see Psycho with a full house NYC audience screaming their heads off...maybe I should take an extra day to see The Apartment, down the block. Likely with another full house, laughing a lot, crying a little and applauding with grateful enthusiasm at the end.

Great year. Wish I was there.

[–] kukuxu (5409) 4 years ago

One small disagreement.

I don't agree with 'The Apartment just feels more MODERN than the Billy Wilder films before it'. It's true that The Apartment could feel someway ahead of its time, but the truth is that you can't find in modern movies anything similar to it. More than 'Modern', the right term would be 'Unique'.

We could say that The Apartment is a Romantic Comedy for Men. We could even say that it was the movie that created this genre, and it's still one of the very few ones ever made. Some years ago, Judd Apatow popularized that genre for a while, but he didn't even get close to the elegance, class, craft and genius that Wilder showed in 1960.

The Apartment is not only a great movie, it's still the only great Romantic Comedy for Men ever made.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

One small disagreement.

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That's OK with me. I appreciate feedback.

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I don't agree with 'The Apartment just feels more MODERN than the Billy Wilder films before it'. It's true that The Apartment could feel someway ahead of its time, but the truth is that you can't find in modern movies anything similar to it. More than 'Modern', the right term would be 'Unique'.

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I'll take that. I will also note that "Double Indemnity" and "Sunset Boulevard" are often considered "ahead of their time" and, indeed, modern, but I sort of see the restraints of the 40's there in a way I don't see with The Apartment.

In fact, Billy Wilder said he had the idea for The Apartment(an original screenplay of his and his partner) back in the early 50's but felt "I could not make the film until American censorship lessened." He knew that was coming; he picked 1960 as the year to make his move.

For in the end, the "ongoing subject" of The Apartment is: sex. People having sex, all the time and whenever they can "squeeze it in" at the apartment. The men are married; Fran is having an affair with one of them. We don't have to SEE any sex to know its happening all the time in this movie.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

We could say that The Apartment is a Romantic Comedy for Men. We could even say that it was the movie that created this genre, and it's still one of the very few ones ever made. Some years ago, Judd Apatow popularized that genre for a while, but he didn't even get close to the elegance, class, craft and genius that Wilder showed in 1960.

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That's a great point, all the way around.

Look, even in the era of metoo and "predatory males"(of which, in The Apartment, Sheldrake is a textbook example -- Hollywood is full of Sheldrakes), there are many, many, MANY young men who are decent and lonely and hoping to find love just as much as any woman does.

If you are a guy taking Jack Lemmon as your protagonist -- and even accounting for what he does with his apartment -- you are ON HIS SIDE. He wants Fran to notice him, to date him....to fall for him.

Baxter can see he has some points on his side. The other men hassling Fran in the elevator are MARRIED(the big problem), older, and not as attractive as Baxter himself. Fran likely IS looking at Baxter as a possible beau -- she accepts the date with him to The Music Man.

Sheldrake stands in the way of Baxter getting Fran, because he's rich(I think his parents were rich, he acts "entitled"), he's powerful, he's all the things women want in a man for "money, security and power." But Sheldrake knows that and that's why he goes through women like tissues, uncaringly -- while staying married.

But Baxter is the rest of us guys -- (or as we believe we are): decent, modest, industrious(a trained accountant), hoping for love, hoping for a companion -- hoping for marriage and kids. The story suggests that Baxter has to "man up" to get it(from Fran) but his decent care of her in the wake of her suicide attempt is another kind of manly courage. (Though lets face it, in real life, getting women is easy for rich guys, handsome guys, and top athlete guys -- but that still leaves a lot of "regular guys" searching for love.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

SPOILERS here for "The Fortune Cookie":

I guess Judd Apatow continued this theme with guys like Steve Carrell and Seth Rogan.

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The Apartment is not only a great movie, it's still the only great Romantic Comedy for Men ever made.

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I think that's a great assessment of it. Very much so.

Weird: 6 years later, Wilder(perhaps getting more cynical about love) , gave us The Fortune Cookie, again in black and white and Panavision(like The Apartment) and in which Lemmon is again a nice guy doing a terrible thing(faking an accident injury so as to get an insurance payout), and eventually rejecting his deal with the Devil(hard to do when the Devil is his shyster-lawyer brother-in-law, Walter Matthau.)

Lemmon again pines for a pretty lady -- but in this case, she's his ex-wife, she cheated on him all the time(with Matthau, too), she's faking love and a re-union now -- and Lemmon almost falls for her again(but she's no Shirley MacLaine.)

But in the end, Lemmon "becomes a mensch" and rejects the money, Matthau AND the ex-wife(with a kick to her rear) and ends up with...a "Negro" football player who was in misery over the accident(he knocked Lemmon over on the football field.) "The Fortune Cookie" rejects a happy love ending in favor of a happy interracial friendship ending...

...and rather says goodbye to the "Apartment" romantic ideal.

[–] kukuxu (5409) 4 years ago

I have another small disagreement.

It's about the ending. Not my idea, though, I used to think The Apartment had a happy ending, but a few days ago I was reading this article that analyses 14 key elements of the movie. I highly recommend the article, btw.

https://www.fotogramas.es/noticias-cine/g32746035/el-apartamento-billy-wilder-analisis-critica-guion/?fbclid=IwAR2SzSsyJPCY3iKDsQTfXZXCStPvGNDML__Kx_1ROuJsMFCfHwvnGU926hU

The 14th point is called "Ending?". I'll translate the last paragraph:

Another script would have ended in a mutual declaration of love, but that would be easy, fake. We only can hope she's going to make her best to love him, and perhaps she will love him, probably she won't. Probably, there will be another Sheldrake and there will be another mistake. Love is a bitch, and so is the ending of 'The Apartment', an ending that links with the one from Chaplin's City Lights and Woody Allen's Manhattan. In all of them there's only a small silver lighting, but there's hope. There's an intention, one dealing cards and one having enough love for both. Wilder says goodbye in a perfectly ambiguous ending, hiding their failure or their success. That would be another story. They're together at the end, what more do we want?.

Le's compare with Apatow. You check, for example, '40 Years Old Virgin' or 'Knocked Up' and they have the same structure: underdog/loser guy struggles until he's finally worthy of being loved. At the end of Apatow's movies the girl finally loves him. At the end of Wilder's movie, though, he's finally worthy and she chooses to give him a chance. One can hope she will finally love him, but we'll never know. It's not the happiest ending, but it's an honest one. Wilder never said goodbye to a romantic ideal because there he didn't hold a romantic ideal in first place, it was just a bittersweet ending with enough room to let us find that ray of hope.