For the first time in 5 years, the Academy awarded its highest honor to a black and white, non-cinemascope film. In The Apartment Billy Wilder directed his second Best Picture winner (The Lost Weekend) after also coming close with Double Indemnity, Sunset Blvd and Witness for the Prosecution, proving that he was one of the great directors of the 20th Century. For The Apartment he would reunite with two stars from two of his most recognized films. Jack Lemon (Some Like it Hot) plays the lovable C. C. Baxter, who lets executives from his company use his apartment for romantic trysts that they would surely rather their wives not find out about. Fred MacMurray (Double Indemnity) played the personnel directory Mr. Sheldrake who uses Baxter’s apartment to have an affair with one of the building’s elevator operators, Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), with whom Baxter has also fallen in love.
There are a lot of things that make this movie special, but in particular the story is wonderful and deep, and even though it was in black and white and not cinemascope, The Apartment is a textbook lesson on how to effectively tell a story with visual cues. I have two examples that show terrific storytelling where information is supplied without the use of dialogue. The first example is a subtle one. It’s Christmas Eve and Baxter has agreed to let Sheldrake take Ms. Kubelik to the apartment. Depressed and lonely, Baxter goes to a bar and we see the bartender hand him a martini. Baxter removes the olive and puts it on the bar where six other olives, still on their toothpicks, sit in a circle. Baxter carefully arranges them and places the newest olive and toothpick with the rest. Wilder is showing us that Baxter has been there for a long time and has had a lot of drinks. To me that is a much more effective mode of storytelling than to have the bartender tell him he’s had enough or to show him acting in a drunken way.
The second example occurs when Baxter returns a broken compact mirror to Mr. Sheldrake that was left behind in his apartment. At this point, Baxter does not know that Ms. Kubelik is Sheldrake’s mistress. Sheldrake admits that they had a fight and that his girl and she threw the compact at him, and that sometimes women can’t be reasoned with. Then a little while later, Baxter needs a mirror to see how he looks with his new bowler hat, and when Ms. Kubelik lets him borrow her compact mirror, Baxter notices that it was the same one that he found back in the apartment. It’s a perfect way for Baxter to find out that Ms. Kubelik is Sheldrake’s mistress without anyone having to come out and say it. It’s also a lot cleverer than simply having Baxter walk in on them. It’s smart filmmaking that relies on the fact that the audience is paying attention, and thus respects the audience’s intelligence by revealing important information this way. Then, when there is some dialogue, it’s loaded with subtext. Baxter reacts to realizing that it’s the same mirror from his apartment and Ms. Kubelik asks him what the matter is. He points out to her that her mirror is broken. Now, Ms. Kubelik, who has just found out from Sheldrake’s secretary that she’s merely the latest in a long line of flings, responds to Baxter pointing out that her mirror is broken by saying, “Yes, I know. I like it that way. It makes me look the way I feel.” That is terrific dialogue. Her heart is broken, and as we’ll find out a few scenes later, she’s so broken on the inside that she’s ready to attempt suicide.
Speaking of Ms. Kubelik’s attempted suicide, it uses a very effective example of planting and payoff, another technique of which there are several examples throughout this extraordinary film. This particular example starts with what appears to be a throw-away line in the first act. Having been stuck out of his apartment the previous night, Baxter has come down with a cold and is trying to sleep it off when he gets a phone call from Mr. Dobisch, one of the executives at the company, and he has met a girl at a bar and he thinks he’s going to get lucky. Baxter tells Dobisch that he’s sick and that he’s taken a sleeping pill and that he needs to sleep. However, Dobisch pulls rank on him and holds a promotion over his head in order to get Baxter to relent, which of course he does. This plant is paid off in the second act when Sheldrake and Ms. Kubelik are having a rendezvous in Baxter’s apartment. Sheldrake had formerly told Ms. Kubelik that he intends to leave his wife, but now he’s telling her that now isn’t a good time because it’s the holidays, and she needs to be more patient. She gives him a record album of their song as a Christmas gift, and Sheldrake, having not gotten her a gift, gives her a $100 bill and then leaves. She tells him that she wants to stay to clean her face since she’s been crying and in Baxter’s medicine cabinet she finds a half-full bottle of sleeping pills, which we are not surprised to see because Baxter had mentioned taking one earlier. Ms. Kubelik takes them all and is discovered later by Baxter, which sets the second half of the film in motion.
Another great moment of planting and payoff involves the key. Baxter gets locked out of his apartment because Mr. Kirkeby gave him back the wrong key. The key he gave him was to the executive wash room. Over the course of the entire film, Baxter is acquiescing to these guys because he wants to move up the company ladder. He never is able to stand up for himself, but he has climbed all the way to being Sheldrake’s second in command, which gets him an office with a window and a key to the executive washroom. Then Sheldrake wants to use his apartment on New Year’s Eve with Ms. Kubelik, even after everything that’s happened. Finally, Baxter stands up for himself and tells him no, especially not with Ms. Kubelik. Sheldrake then tells him that everything will be taken away unless he hands over the key. Appearing to acquiesce yet again, Baxter hands over a key and goes to his office. Sheldrake follows him in there and tells him he gave him the wrong key. Baxter tells him that he didn’t. That’s the key to the executive washroom, and he’s quitting. Finally, Baxter has stood up for himself and Wilder as both writer and director used the technique of planting and payoff brilliantly. The best use of planting and payoff is when you can put the most time possible between the plant and the payoff. This particular plant happens in the first act. As a matter of fact, it’s within the first 15 minutes of the movie. Then the payoff doesn’t happen until the third act, and it’s within 15 minutes of the end of the movie. It is an absolutely terrific use of that technique, and this is certainly a screenplay that any aspiring writer could find instructive for the reasons I’ve already laid out and there are many other examples of great writing throughout the film.
I had seen this film before, but what struck me so much while I was watching this time was how visual of a story it is. The previous four winners of Best Motion Picture were all shot in Cinemascope wide screen format, but none of them told their stories as effectively from a visual standpoint as The Apartment. The Bridge on the River Kwai and Ben-Hur were both amazing films that used the new technology much more effectively from a storytelling point of view than did either Gigi or Around the World in 80 Days, however, The Apartment with its black and white film and its standard format, told a story that was not only written well, but shown just as well as any of those films. Was it eye candy? No. Was it stunning to look at? No. But it didn’t need to be. Wonder of wonders, the storytelling was enough. As mentioned in previous examples. Wilder used visual keys and cues to propel the story forward. He didn’t need cinemascope to do it because he trusted his audience to pick up on the keys and cues that he was leaving. He trusted his own talent as a filmmaker to craft a film that was emotionally powerful, humorous at times and so riveting that you couldn’t take your eyes off of it. Not because of the spectacle, but because the story was so engaging.
There’s one more point I’d like to make about this film as well, and that has to do with the powerhouse performances of the actors. It is my contention that Jack Lemon is one of the more underrated actors of the 20th Century. That guy could do it all and he could do it all well. He didn’t have the gravitas of Charlton Heston or the presence of James Stewart or the depth of Gregory Peck or the pure methodology of Marlon Brando or Paul Newman. But he had that “everyman” quality that none of them had. All of those actors played rolls that Lemon could never have pulled off, but could you see Brando or Newman or Heston playing Baxter? Or Felix Unger from The Odd Couple? Or Jerry from Some Like it Hot? I don’t think so. And in The Apartment, Jack Lemon gave what might have been his signature performance. This was an incredibly difficult role to play because he’s the straight man in a world of odd balls. He’s the moral compass in a world of debauchery. He’s the one who needs to get the girl even though he’s the least likely to do so. He is you. He is me. Any one of us could be Baxter, and Lemon played him perfectly. I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention the fine acting job done by Shirley MacLaine. She is absolutely wonderful in this film as a vulnerable, emotionally fragile, yet quirky and fun-loving elevator operator. MacLaine gave Ms. Kubelik just enough vulnerability without making her weak. She gave her just enough sass to keep her from coming off as cocky. She’s the perfect girl for Baxter, and we as the audience root the whole time for them to end up together.
Did the Academy get it right?
I believe they did. It wasn’t a terribly strong year, at least when considering what was nominated against it. John Wayne’s The Alamo is certainly an iconic film, and Elmer Gantry is also very well respected. However, The Apartment with its complex simplicity and its carefully crafted story was in a league of its in in 1960. Psycho was a film that was released that year but was not even nominated, and has become one of the most iconic films ever. It’s also rated #18 on AFI’s list of the top 100 films of all time. The Apartment is not on the list, but this is one of those times where AFI and I part company. The Apartment was the best film of 1960, and a deserving winner of Best Motion Picture.