Introduction to THE APARTMENT (1960)
Posted by Daniel Metz
Shut up and deal.
It’s New Year’s Eve, and I have been asked to introduce The Apartment at the Alamo Drafthouse special NYE celebration. Here is what I am aiming to say. Am I nervous? Eek!
Wilder was born in 1906 in Austria. He started his career as a journalist and moved to Berlin, where he developed an interest in the cinema. He cowrote a screenplay in 1929, a semi-documentary called People on Sunday. As part of a general emigration out of Germany during the rise of the Nazis, Wilder came to Hollywood after a short stop in Paris.
While in Hollywood, Wilder found work as a screenwriter, collaborating with major Hollywood directors like Ernst Lubitsch and Howard Hawks. It was in working with Lubitsch, Hawks, and others that Wilder began to develop his own distinct style. From Hawks he learned to privilege fast-paced, idiom heavy dialogue. With Lubitsch, Wilder developed a predilection for sexual innuendo and a sinister attitude toward the upper classes.
Wilder made his Hollywood directorial debut with the delightful Ginger Rogers vehicle The Major and the Minor in 1942. In 1944, Wilder made his name by directing the classic Double Indemnity. That film, which is often seen as the quintessential film noir, established a dark element in Wilder’s screenwriting and directing that would persist throughout the rest of his career. This would be followed up in 1945 with The Lost Weekend, an even darker tale about alcoholism that won Wilder the Academy Award for Best Director and Best Screenplay.
Throughout the 1950s, Wilder made a number of films that are now considered classics. He was beginning to develop not only a reputation as one of the funniest and most biting screenwriters in Hollywood, but also as someone who could command great comedic performances. He was especially noted for his handling of Marilyn Monroe, who arguably delivered her most stunning performances in The Seven Year Itch and Some Like it Hot, both Wilder films. Among other hits, this decade saw Wilder’s Sunset Blvd., Ace in the Hole, Stalag 17 and Sabrina stun American audiences for their pitch black humor and wit.
Some Like it Hot, the Tony Curtis/Jack Lemmon/Marilyn Monroe farce that is considered by the AFI to be the greatest comedy in American film history, was a great success for Wilder. It was also Wilder’s first film to be released without the production code seal of approval, a very controversial move in 1959. Wilder’s style of open sexuality and humor was often being challenged by the censors, however, and he decided that his clout was enough to circumvent traditional distribution in order to gain more freedom for his films.
And that brings us to 1960, and this little gem called The Apartment. Just as challenging to the production code as Some Like it Hot, this film is probably Wilder’s greatest accomplishment. It shows the dark humor that he had been working through his entire career. It demonstrates the sexual innuendo that Lubitsch was so famous for but that Wilder developed further in the 1950s. It also has a fascination with American popular culture that only an emigre can properly articulate. Yes, this film is dark, but it is also a heartwarming story that runs the gauntlet of the American experience and finishes with a New Year’s Eve celebration for the history books.
