Film Diary: The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960)

CC 'Bud' Baxter is an insurance clerk, one of thousands of tiny fish swimming in a huge corporate pond, who cynically tries to swim his way out of his mechanical existence by letting his West Side apartment to corporate executives by the hour. He in bhis turn is manipulated even more cynically by the corporate chief, but starts to see the light when the naive lift girl he likes is caught in the net, and things turn nasty.

I'm a huge fan of the films of Billy Wilder. Jack Lemmon could do no wrong either. Put them together and of course most people will think of Some Like It Hot, and quite rightly so. Rather shamefully neglected is the film that came after SLIH, which is also perfectly cast, perfectly filmed, funny and dark at the same time. Only much more intensely. It's true that there aren't as many laughs in The Apartment, which is one of those black comedies - before Joe Orton got into his stride too - which seems farcical until it takes a dramatic turn somewhere in the middle, and you feel bad about laughing. It's much more subtle too. Shirley MacLaine makes a less in-your-face but more believeable than Marilyn Monroe; Wilder was famously exasperated by Monroe in the earlier film and sends her up something rotten at one point here. For all it's unfairly neglected these days - perhaps because it looks twenty years older than it is, for no doubt sound artistic reasons - it's a wonderful film.

Trivia time: Which was the last film made in black and white to win the Best Picture Oscar? Answer: No, it wasn't Schindler's List, it was The Apartment.