|
The Apartment
Directed by: Billy Wilder
Starring: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray
Synopsis: An insurance clerk lets company executives use his apartment for their extramarital affairs.
Genre: Comedy
Resources: IMDb, Where to stream
Welcome back to Tuesday Night.
You can support our work.
Tuesday Night Movie Night will always offer free movie recommendations to all. Monthly supporting members make it possible (with money).
|
Each week, Drew creates a watchlist with film recommendations provided by you.
Celebrate the first ever mystery prize winner.
Kelly F. has been randomly selected from all previous watchlist winners to-date. Her odds were high, because she’s won more than one category. Her prize: $25 to her local movie theatre, and an official TNMN coffee mug. Congratulations Kelly! The counts have officially been reset for the next prize.
Celebrate last week’s winner.
Kelly F. and Christina L. won 80s movies with their submission, The Breakfast Club, and therefore earned one ticket in the lottery for our annual mystery prize.
Check out the movies you wouldn't want to watch with your parents watchlist and don’t forget to vote on your favorite entries.
The category is historical fiction movies. Submit a movie for a chance to win our annual mystery prize.*
Wise words from Gordon C.
New monthly supporters get one-time feature in TNMN. Say what you want, and Blake must include it in a future edition. Today’s sentence is from Gordon C., our newest monthly supporter:
“If you're wondering why you're here, Kurt Vonnegut would want you to know that '[The] purpose of human life... is to love whoever is around to be loved.' (Sirens of Titan)”
|
What it is.
A spoiler-free description of the movie.
An insurance clerk lets company executives use his apartment for their extramarital affairs.
If you like these things, then you’ll like the film.
→ Classic Hollywood. The Apartment was released in 1960 at the tail end of the era often referred to as Classic Hollywood (duh).
→ Prescient satire. Expectedly, some of this film feels socially dated. Still, the satire of corporate culture and male fragility is shockingly fresh and applicable to modern times.
→ Jack Lemmon, buddy boy! Perhaps the most preeminent, original performer of the anxious everyman archetype, one that’s been ever-present in cinema for a very, very long time.
What I think.
Billy Wilder’s The Apartment is an American classic, and for good reason.
The film is most certainly a relic of a time long past. Office workers are seated in endless rows of identical desks, lined up like a hideous early capitalist floral arrangement, because this film arrived before the modern cubicle revolutionized corporate workspaces. Typewriters crunch and clack and abrasive phones sing constantly and urgently as operators plug and unplug various cords to connect calls. Cozy watering holes are adorned with live pianists who play, and all the dishes at home in Jack Lemmon’s little apartment are done by hand.
Despite its age, The Apartment is a marvel because it somehow still feels fresh and present. I submit that if it were released today (with a few obvious adjustments for social progress), Billy Wilder’s romantic comedy would all over again capture the hearts and pinch the funny bones of audiences everywhere. This is probably because Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine both turn in endearing, rich performances. Or moreover because the themes somehow still feel relevant; which is either an astonishing accomplishment of prescience in script writing, or a disheartening condemnation of how much progress we’ve really made since 1960s (your author refuses to choose).
Most of all, The Apartment is a sweet-hearted, romantic, sometimes downright silly examination of how corporate value systems affect personal calculus, and I reckon it’s worth a watch if you need a good laugh.
A fact or two about the production that makes you say “oh, neat.”
→ An optical illusion made the demoralizing, endless rows of office desks possible. The set was meant to represent the impersonal nature of corporate life. According to press notes, the set covered more than 25,000 square feet. Wilder said they used forced perspective with progressively smaller sized desks that recede into cardboard cutouts. The actors in the back rows were children.
→ Filming started before the script was finished. Only 29 pages had been written. Shirley MacLaine’s words: “Jack Lemmon and I had no idea how the film would end and neither did Billy Wilder, the director. So he just watched our relationship to see how the chemistry would evolve.”
→ The Apartment was the last black-and-white film to win Best Picture until Schindler's List in 1993. Billy Wilder was considered to direct Schindler’s List before Steven Spielberg was linked to the project.
See you next week!
Blake and Drew
Love TNMN? Forward this email to someone you think may also love it.
Got forwarded this email? Sign up for free to get one good movie recommendation every Tuesday from two brothers that love movies.
This email was crafted by humans, not AI. If you believe in the power of real movie recommendations and 100% human writing, become a monthly supporter. Tuesday Night Movie Night will always offer free movie recommendations to all, but monthly supporting members make it all possible (with money).
