“The Apartment” (1960) starring Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray was nominated for 10 Oscars and won five of them, including an Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Director for Billy Wilder. It is rated by Rotten Tomatoes as the eighth best Christmas film of all time and by Esquire as the third best New Year’s film. In some ways, it seems like the 1960s version of “Love Actually” (or maybe, it should be the other way around). Whether these rankings indicate a true dearth of good holiday films or something else about the film industry and its rankings, “The Apartment” is no longer a feel-good movie or one with many laughs.
C.C. Baxter (Lemmon) is a young executive looking to advance
in his company. As such, he loans out his apartment to the executives above him,
so that they can cheat on their wives. This leads to late nights on a park
bench for Charlie as well as a poor reputation among his fellow apartment
dwellers and landlady. Lemmon schedules each of four executives, gives them
deadlines to be out of the apartment (which they fail to meet), purchases
alcohol and snacks for them to have while they are entertaining the women.
The boss, Jeff Sheldrake (MacMurray), learns about the
apartment and its shenanigans and manipulates Baxter into allowing him to use
it for his dates with Elevator Operator Fran Kubelik (MacLaine), with whom
Baxter is in love. Baxter doesn’t know the identity of the woman Sheldrake is
dating, and with the promise of promotion and the threat of losing his job, he
agrees to the arrangement.
Kubelik makes it clear, on multiple occasions, that she
likes Baxter but has absolutely no romantic interest in him. Still, she’s nice
enough to him in a friendly way that he keeps his hopes alive for a meaningful
relationship with her.
Everyone of the main characters has low morals of some sort.
Disney staple MacMurray’s Sheldrake is a liar and manipulator, who serially
cheats on his wife. MacLaine’s Kubelik knows Sheldrake is married and still
goes out with him while lamenting about the type of men she’s attracted to.
While she may seem to be the victim, she is complicit in her decision to
continue going out with Sheldrake even after she has ostensibly broken off the
relationship. The company itself shows its morals at the Christmas party where
co-workers make out in every corner and one of the women does a striptease on a
desk. All of this can be taken in context of current and past morals. (When
Sheldrake confronts Baxter, Baxter says four bad apples are very little in
relation to over 32,000 employees; Sheldrake responds with the fact that even
four bad apples can ruin a large barrel.)
Lemmon’s Baxter may be the least objectionable morally; he
certainly isn’t as bad as he could be. He never resorts to blackmail to get his
promotions. Still, he’s an enabler and a liar, and his need to climb the
corporate ladder trumps his better judgement. His character is the only one with a believable
arc. At least, the doctor, his wife and presumedly, the landlady are good
people.
Lemmon, MacLaine (until her sudden change of mind/heart),
and MacMurray are convincing in their roles. They are sympathetic actors even
if their characters don’t offer much in the way of sympathy, and as long as cheating
on your wife, attempted suicide, and discussion of another attempted suicide
make for funny situations in holiday films for you, “The Apartment” is a decent
movie. It’s interesting as a cultural study, especially in view of many people
who would like to back to the era when men in power could cheat on their wives
with impunity. Though this movie includes a woman who would cheat on her
husband, who is in jail in Havana, so maybe this is where the sexual revolution
began.
Penguinate! Positive Creativity 