Director: Billy Wilder Writers: Billy Wilder & I.A.L. Diamond Starring: Jack Lemmon, Shirley Maclaine Genre: Comedy, Romance, Drama
Tagline: He lent his flat for love - of his job!
Won 5 Oscars including best director, best picture, best screenplay
New York 1959. C.C. “Bud” Baxter is a popular clerk of “Consolidate Life”, an insurance company with 31,259 employees. The secret of his success is a well located apartment where he lives that he sublets for his superiors, making him climb to the executive position of 2nd Administrative Assistant very early. He likes the elevator girl Fran Kubelik, a reserved woman considered a “jackpot” among the executives. Fran is the secret lover of the director Jeff D. Sheldrake, a married man. He has convinced her that he will divorce his wife to stay with her. When Fran tries to commit suicide in Baxter’s apartment after a meeting with Jeff, she stays with Baxter while recovering. And he falls in love for her. Later he has to come up to a decision between his excellent position in the company and his love.
NOTES:
This is Ricky Gervais favourite film and has a big impact on the way he deals with romance in his work.
“It’s so much more powerful when they don’t kiss ……what blww me away by The Apartment was the ending – he says ‘I love you’ and she’s sort of shuffling cards ‘cos when they were friends they used to play and he says ‘Did you hear what i said? I absolutely adore you.’ And she says ‘Shut up and deal.’ Beautiful – soul mates – they’ve got things in common, they’ve already built it on a friendship.”
