the apartment

Despite winning Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay at the 1960 Oscar ceremony, popping up on countless Greatest Films of All Time lists and being added to the Library of Congress National Film Registry in 1994, Billy Wilder's dark romantic comedy The Apartment seems to have drifted out of the public eye. All the more ironic considering the film's plot is centered about workplace infidelity, gender inequality and upward mobility. As a follow-up to his crowd-pleaser Some Like It Hot, Wilder takes wonderful chances here with a much more mature approach - leaning heavily on Shirley MacLaine's second Oscar nominated performance - that results in career best for almost everyone involved.

C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) is a low-level employee in one of the nation's largest insurance companies, almost invisible amongst the thousands of desks inside the high-rise office building. But Baxter has been getting glowing reviews thanks to several sleazy executives who use his non-descript Upper West Side apartment as a love-nest for their extra-marital affairs. Although he's tried to keep everything on the down-low, word spreads to the personnel director, Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray), who, surprisingly, also requests a key to the apartment for his latest conquest: Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), the elevator operator Baxter himself has long-pined after.

Despite his quick promotion up the ranks, Baxter becomes even more depressed about his situation upon discovering his secret crush is involved with his boss. And Fran, after being "outed" during the office Christmas party, gets desperate about Sheldrake's promises to leave his wife for good. But tragic circumstances conspire to put them together on Christmas Eve at Baxter's apartment, where the spark of a "real" relationship gives them both a bit of hope.

There's no denying that Wilder and collaborator I.A.L Diamond's script treats infidelity as a casual consequence of the executive lifestyle; a criticism that prompted some audience disdain at the time. But Fran's experience is so well rounded - and MacLaine's performance so charmingly self-deprecating - that most "homewrecker" clichés go out the window; the parade of bimbos tracking through Baxter's apartment are a different breed entirely. And while Lemmon is a likable enough lead, repeating the same endearing set of neuroses that worked before and would work again, the film's most powerful moments belong to MacLaine. (Although, cast against type, Fred MacMurray makes for an effectively evil adulterer...so much so that he was confronted by fans in the street!).

Wilder creates a wonderfully lived-in world. From the forced perspective office sets to Baxter's boozy bachelor pad, the sets are just as convincing as the performers. Even bit players like Jack Kruschen as Baxter's neighbor, a physician who assumes Baxter is leading a playboy lifestyle, provide a comforting sense of community akin to a John Ford film. Although ostensibly a comedy, The Apartment evolves into something much more. It's a fairy tale about life, love and loneliness that often gets uncomfortably close to the truth.

Arrow Academy's limited edition features a 4K restored edition of the film presented on hi-def Blu-ray and also comes with a 150-page hardcover book. Extras are copious as well, including a new appreciation of the film and select scene commentary by film historian Philip Kemp, new video essay on Wilder and Lemmon's collaborations, Billy Wilder ABC (an overview of the director's career and collaborators), new interview with actress Hope Holiday, the Art of Jack Lemmon, half-hour Making Of featurette, audio commentary, original screenplay on BD-ROM and the theatrical trailer. That oughta put this one back on the map!