1960: The Apartment.

C. C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) offers up the key to his apartment.

Release Date: June 15, 1960. Running Time: 125 minutes. Screenplay: Billy Wilder, I. A. L. Diamond. Producer: Billy Wilder. Director: Billy Wilder.


THE PLOT:

C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) works in the Ordinary Policy Department of Consolidated Life, a New York insurance company. He has ambitions, a plan to move up the ladder by exploiting his most valued possession: His apartment.

Baxter is allowing four managers to use his place for assignations, in exchange for them putting in a good word with personnel director Jeff Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray). But when he finally gets his meeting with this supposedly moral family man, he learns the cost of his coveted promotion: to make a copy of his apartment key to share with Sheldrake.

This is no great matter to Baxter... until he discovers that Sheldrake's mistress is pretty young elevator operator Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), the object of Baxter's own affections. Sheldrake is stringing Fran along in the cruelest way possible, making her feel small with one sentence and promising to leave his wife for her in the next - and it soon enough falls to Baxter to try to fix the human wreckage his boss has left behind!

Cleaning up his boss's mess: Baxter tends to Fran (Shirley MacLaine).

JACK LEMMON AS C. C. "BUD" BAXTER:

The Apartment balances comedy and drama, with both elements often running simultaneously. As such, the film makes full use of star Jack Lemmon's ability to remain fully earnest even while doing physical comedy.

Baxter, suffering from a bad cold, juggles his "appointments" so that he can go home. Lemmon flips through his rolodex while spraying cold medicine in his nose while juggling the phone. When he finally gets his meeting with Sheldrake, he all but struts to the office... only to become a picture of nervousness when The Big Boss hones in on the arrangement he's made with his supervisors. There's a split second in which he squeezes his nasal medicine and a jet of it sprays across the office. Lemmon performs all the bits of physical business perfectly. This extends to entirely serious scenes. When Baxter discovers that Fran is Sheldrake's mistress, his change in expression is small, the drop in his voice tiny - but both fluctuations are extremely effective.

Most of all, he projects an everyman quality that keeps the viewer on his side. Imagine if, instead of pairing a second time with Lemmon, director Billy Wilder had cast his Some Like It Hot co-star, Tony Curtis. The film would still work, but it would be an instantly more cynical picture. With Lemmon, we never doubt that Baxter is a decent person despite the sleaziness of his arrangement, and that in itself is enough to keep a certain lightness in the story even when it takes its darkest turns.

The four "rotten apples": The middle managers pressure Baxter to keep up their deal.

OTHER CHARACTERS:

Fran: "For a while there, you try kidding yourself that you're going with an unmarried man. Then one day, he keeps looking at his watch and asks you if there's any lipstick showing... and it all begins to look so ugly." The script uses its first big scene between Fran and Sheldrake to make clear that she initially believed he was single. It's a great monologue, which MacLaine delivers well. For my money, though, her best acting comes when she and Sheldake exchange Christmas gifts. She gives Sheldrake a genuinely thoughtful present. He responds by saying, "We better keep it here" (at the apartment). Then comes his "gift": $100 bill dropped discreetly into her purse. The camera pushes in very slightly as Fran registers the money and its meaning - as it once again "all begins to looks so ugly."

"The Rotten Apples": The four middle managers who created the initial arrangement with Baxter: Dobisch (Ray Walston), Kirkeby (David Lewis), Wanderhoff (Willard Waterman), and Eichelberger (David White). The early part of the film makes clear how badly they are abusing the deal with Baxter, who is pushed out of his place at midnight so that Dobisch can bring back a blonde he's just met who reminds him of Marilyn Monroe. After Baxter moves up, their use of the apartment stops. One scene shows all four attempting to intimidate Baxter, only for Sheldrake to walk in. The four are oblivious to Sheldrake's use of the apartment, but they still instantly change their behavior because... well, he's their boss.

Dr. Dreyfuss: Baxter's next-door neighbor, well played by Jack Kruschen. In his first scenes, he seems mostly amused by the life he assumes Baxter is living. Then Fran, in a particularly desperate moment, makes an attempt on her own life using sleeping pills. Baxter rushes to Dreyfuss. The doctor helps her, and he even agrees to remain discreet. But his previous amusement with Baxter vanishes as he warns that most people who attempt suicide try again. He is entirely serious in his disgust when he tells Baxter to "be a mensch... a human being!"

Jeff Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray): Not the morally upright family man he pretends to be.

FRED MACMURRAY AS MR. SHELDRAKE:

Sheldrake is the person in the film least likely to be considered a "mensch." He is introduced lecturing Baxter about how "four rotten apples" could ruin public trust in the company - only to immediately manipulate Baxter into handing over his apartment key. If he had gone into politics, he'd probably be espousing "family values" at this moment. This is another wonderfully written scene. Sheldrake never actually asks Baxter for his key. Instead, he makes several individually innocuous statements to steer his subordinate into offering it.

Sheldrake rekindles the relationship with Fran by promising to divorce his wife. It's a classic lie that she believes because she wants to - but Sheldrake is a man with no shame, and a few scenes later he complains to Baxter: "You see a girl a couple of times a week, just for laughs, and right away she thinks you're going to divorce your wife." Well, of course she does - You told her you were going to!

The Apartment was the last of Fred MacMurray's surface-respectable cads. By this point, he had already turned to family friendly fare, such as the previous year's The Shaggy Dog. He experienced some backlash when this came out and reportedly vowed to never play such a role again. A pity - I always thought he was at his best in this type of role, rather than the more Disney-fied fare that made up most of the last two decades of his career.

Baxter clumsily attempts to flirt with Fran.

THOUGHTS:

"That's the way it crumbles, cookie-wise."
-musings from both Baxter and Fran at different points in the story.

Director/co-writer Billy Wilder followed up his Hays Code-puncturing hit, Some Like It Hot, with another movie that was considered shocking at the time: The Apartment, a comedy/drama with a plot revolving around serial adultery.

Decades on, the content is no longer shocking. And divorced of that... The Apartment still holds up as a sharp, smart, wonderfully scripted and acted movie. The script, by Wilder and frequent collaborator I. A. L. Diamond, is impeccable in balancing potentially clashing tones, and Wilder uses a mix of comedic and dramatic cinematic language to strong effect throughout the first half.

The first half hour is entirely comedic in tone. It's not just that many of the lines and visual bits are funny. Everything about the presentation clues us in that this is a comedy. Dialogue is a rapid patter, emphasizing one-liners and exaggerated reactions. A comedic set piece is made of Baxter's desperate attempt to clear the night's schedule so that he can lie in with a cold, with repeated phrases ("I'll get back to you") and rapid cuts between Baxter at his desk and the managers in their offices.

Then Fran meets Sheldrake, and the tone shifts. Line deliveries become slower, as does the film editing. This, the emotional dialogue, and the performances of Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray all tell us that we are now watching a drama.

Baxter is oblivious as Sheldrake's secretary corners Fran.

A scene involving an office Christmas party begins as comedy and ends as drama, and Wilder mixes both comedic and dramatic styles to great effect here. Initially, we're back to the language of the first half hour: the antics of the revelers; rapid patter by Baxter as he brings Fran into the party; the camera moving to follow them. Then Baxter leaves Fran for a moment, and she's cornered by Sheldrake's secretary. The camera suddenly stays still, and background sounds become a little quieter, all so that the focus can be entirely on the dialogue the two exchange.

Baxter returns at the tail end of their conversation, but he's oblvious to any issue. He continues to patter away as he guides Fran to his new office. However, now the scene is shot and edited as drama, and Fran is our viewpoint character. Jack Lemmon's line deliveries and facial expressions, previously amusing, are now suddenly annoying, even exhausting - an exact reflection of Fran's reaction. Then comes a last switch-up, as the end of the scene returns to Baxter's point of view with the discovery of Fran's broken mirror - at which point his mood matches her own, complete with him politely attempting to show no reaction.

It's quietly masterful filmmaking - and the change from comedy to drama makes the emotional material all the more effective, since the steady humor throughout the first half lulls the audience into lowering its defenses.

The movie also is interesting in the way it sets up Baxter and Fran as a couple. The movie constantly contrasts Fran's interactions with Sheldrake against those with Baxter. She doesn't share a single fully happy moment with Sheldrake, but she is often shown laughing or at least smiling with Baxter. When she becomes sad or depressed with Sheldrake, he dismisses her as "childish." Meanwhile, Baxter tries to keep her engaged, sharing a story of his own past heartache. Even at the film's end, Fran never actually declares any feeling for Baxter, while she insists that she loves Sheldrake - yet the film takes pains to frame her as a partner for Baxter in just about every way it can.

Baxter puts up with the demands of Kirkeby, one of the managers using his apartment.

REMAKES AND RETELLINGS:

It's unsurprising that The Apartment was reworked as a stage production. It is surprising that it was turned into a musical. Burt Bacharach, Hal David, and Neil Simon collaborated on the 1968 production, Promises, Promises, which toured from 1968 - 1972. This show was revived in 2010, with two new songs by Bacharach and David.


OVERALL:

Both Jack Lemmon and Billy Wilder would later state that they considered The Apartment to be a drama and not a comedy, and I'd largely agree. Humor is used to draw viewers into the story and to keep them engaged during the early stage-setting. Then the comedy elements gradually decrease until, by the midpoint, the occasional funny line is mostly there to lighten and contrast with the rest of it.

The script is as sharp as you'd expect of a film from this era by Wilder and co-writer I. A. L. Diamond. In terms of film techniques, it's such a textbook case in mixing different genres that if it isn't taught in film schools, it should be.

Most importantly, it's still an engaging movie boasting excellent performances and a satisfying ending. Just as a film to watch, I'd rank it as highly recommended.


Rating: 8/10.

Best Motion Picture - 1959: Ben-Hur
Best Motion Picture - 1961: West Side Story

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1945: The Lost Weekend.

Don Birnam (Ray Milland) takes the first drink
that will set him off on an epic weekend bender.

Release Date: Nov. 29, 1945. Running Time: 101 minutes. Screenplay: Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder. Based on the novel by: Charles R. Jackson. Producer: Charles Brackett. Director: Billy Wilder.


THE PLOT:

"I'm not a drinker, I'm a drunk."

When he first came to New York, Don Birnam (Ray Milland) had ambitions of becoming a great novelist. Years later, he is a hopeless alcoholic - not so much struggling against the bottle as struggling simply to get to a bottle without interference. His long-suffering brother, Wick (Phillip Terry), plans to take him to the country for the weekend to help him dry out. But Don has other ideas.

Stealing money meant for the cleaning lady, Don makes his way first to a liquor store, then to a bar. He initially just wants a few drinks to fortify himself for the trip. Once he starts, however, he cannot stop.  He soon finds himself all-in on an epic bender, a drunken odyssey that will take him to bars and clubs and hospitals, and that will see him move from petty theft to open robbery, all to secure just one more drink...

Wick (Phillip Terry) and Helen (Jane Wyman) try to help Don.

CHARACTERS:

Don: Ray Milland's Academy Award winning performance is often mesmerizing. He is on screen for all but a few brief scenes, and he is tasked with carrying the movie despite playing a man who is almost constantly inebriated. Milland's nonverbal acting is excellent. When Don tries to sit still, he becomes immediately restless and fidgety. He is ashamed of his weakness, but he is still self-congratulatory when he succeeds in sneaking a drink, or when he believes he's gotten away with snatching a purse in order to pay for more drinks. For all Don's terrible behavior, others keep giving him chances because he has a degree of residual charm and wit. Late in the movie, even that drops away, leaving just desperation as he threatens a liquor store owner in order to steal a bottle of whiskey.

Helen: Jane Wyman is stuck with the thankless role of "the girlfriend." Helen falls for Don over some mild screwball comedy antics involving switched coats at an opera, and she is so taken with Don that she sticks by him for years of drunkenness, lies about drinking, and theft to afford drinking. And... that's about all there is to it. Wyman finds a few good moments, such as when she rebukes Don's landlady for gossiping about him, but Helen is overall the poorest written of the film's characters, more a plot device than a person.

Wick: Don's brother (Phillip Terry) is also his main source of support. As the film opens, we see that he's at the end of his rope. After Don sneaks off to a bar, destroying Wick's plan to get him away from temptation for the weekend, he complains to Helen that they've tried everything, and that Don is a "hopeless alcoholic." In flashbacks, we see that he was once supportive, even trying to cover for Don when he got drunk the day he was supposed to meet Helen's parents. In the present, he's given up... and after so much time and effort that has come to naught, I can't particularly condemn him for it.

Nat: Howard Da Silva, as Don's regular bartender, lends a sturdy presence to a role that on the page mainly exists to facilitate exposition. Nat is Don's audience when he relates how he met Helen, which led to his longest period of sobriety (six weeks). At one point, Don leaves the bar, insisting that he's going home to write. Nat wishes him well, and there's a sense that he's at least a little hopeful... but he is also entirely unsurprised when Don returns for another drink not long after.

Don waxes about how drinking makes
him feel as Nat (Howard Da Silva) listens.

THOUGHTS:

"Yeah, one. One's too many and a hundred's not enough."
-Nat (Howard Da Silva) accurately sizes up Don's request for "just one" drink.

The Lost Weekend was the first major Hollywood film to treat alcoholism as a serious disease. Its influence can be felt in so many later works: Days of Wine and Roses, Leaving Las Vegas, My Name Is Bill W., and so many others.

Alcoholics had previously been comedy relief figures, "funny drunks" who staggered around for easy laughs on the periphery of the real story. The Lost Weekend takes one of these "drunks" and puts him front-and-center for 100 minutes, and in doing so makes clear that his antics are anything but funny to himself and those around him. Ray Milland's Don Birnam is simultaneously the hero, villain, and victim of his own story.

Early in the film, Don attempts to negotiate with his alcoholism. When he goes to Nat's bar, he insists that he will stop drinking in time to make a phone call to move his weekend trip from the afternoon train to the evening one. This fails, his promise forgotten in the heat of his self-perceived brilliance as he waxes on about literary figures. He hides bottles so that his girlfriend and brother won't find them; the film opens with the image of a bottle hanging outside the apartment window. Later, when he purchases two bottles, he hides one in a ceiling light fixture - only to later forget where he stashed it, prompting him to make a total wreck of his home while searching for it.

Director Billy Wilder's film noir classic Double Indemnity should have won Best Picture for 1944.  Wilder applies several of the same techniques here. Don lurks in shadows like a criminal as he waits for Wick and Helen to leave the building so that he can sneak up unobserved. When Don struggles against an available bottle, the music score rises with the tension of a foul deed about to be committed, and crescendos when he gives into his addiction and drinks. When Don eventually finds himself in the drunk ward of a hospital, the scene is much like one from a horror movie - particularly when a patient begins screaming as he hallucinates himself covered with insects.

Wilder also puts in moments of humor. In flashback, we see Don at an opera. He squirms uncomfortably as every character on stage holds up a full wine glass. His discomfort increases until suddenly we see all the characters replaced by replicas of Don's own raincoat, with its bottle hidden away in an inside pocket. It's a funny moment, but it also shows the more insidious side of Don's sickness: Even when he's not drinking, he's thinking about drinking, and moments such as this pull us into his mindset so that we come to comprehend all that he's going through.

Don gives in completely as he guzzles down a full bottle.

A VICTIM OF ITS OWN SUCCESS:

All of these details and visual and audio touches work in The Lost Weekend's favor. Billy Wilder's direction and Ray Milland's performance go a long way toward helping this film to hold up... at least, to an extent.

There's just one problem, but it is a big one: You just can't replicate the experience of watching this in 1945. At the time, it was a jolt to audiences. Those who had struggled with this addiction saw their own issues finally reflected on screen, as did their friends and family. Those who had dismissed "drunks" as being simply morally weak saw that there was much more to it than that.

More than 75 years on, however, all of this is familiar ground. Many films have been made on this topic, and several of them are simply more engaging than this one. Even discounting the tacked-on happy ending (which likely rang false even at the time), from a modern standpoint The Lost Weekend is more a movie to respect than one to actually become immersed in.


OVERALL:

The Lost Weekend stands as an important historical piece. Its influence can still be felt today, and film aficionados should definitely view it not only for its significance but for some fine moments of film technique.

Even so, I can't quite fully endorse it as a movie for modern viewers to sit down and watch. Much of it is effective. However, its 100 minutes slowly become an endurance test, and too many other movies have surpassed its accomplishments.


Overall Rating: 6/10. I respect this movie - but I'm fairly certain that I will never choose to rewatch it.

Best Motion Picture - 1944: Going My Way
Best Motion Picture - 1946: The Best Years of Our Lives

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David O. Selznick vs. the Hays Office: Battling the censors for Gone with the Wind and Rebecca.

Rebecca (1940): Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier) has
a secret that's a lot less shocking than it should be...

"In the Tradition of Quality"
-company motto of Selznick International Pictures

For a brief moment, producer David O. Selznick's independent Selznick International Pictures was at the very top of the business. The studio had already released some successful and well-received films, several of which are now regarded as classics, including: A Star Is Born; The Prisoner of Zenda; and Intermezzo.

In 1939, Selznick released Gone with the Wind, which not only won the Best Picture Oscar but which remains - adjusted for inflation - the biggest ticket seller of all time. In 1940, his studio followed up with Rebecca, the only movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock to have won the Best Picture Oscar, and which was also a considerable box office success. Those two motion pictures made Selznick International 1940's top-grossing Hollywood film studio.

Both movies are marked by quality filmmaking and by screenplays that are remarkably faithful to their source novels. Both movies share another common feature: Selznick's struggles to guide them, intact, past the censors.

Gone with the Wind (1939): "Frankly, I just don't care." 
Doesn't quite have the same ring to it, does it?

GONE WITH THE WIND: THE HAYS OFFICE RETREATS

"No picture shall be produced which will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience shall never be thrown to the side of crime, wrong-doing, evil or sin."
-the first of the major principles governing the Motion Picture Production Code, aka the Hays Code

The Motion Picture Production Code was not enforced through government entities. It was adopted in 1930 by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) under the leadership of Will H. Hays, as a way for studios to police themselves - in no small part to prevent government censorship. There was no legal enforcement of the Code... but by 1934, mainstream American movie theaters would not screen a movie that lacked Hays Office approval.

David O. Selznick's published memos reflect his increasing frustration with these restrictions, particularly as they applied to Gone with the Wind and Rebecca. In the case of Gone with the Wind, most of the tension surrounded Clark Gable's final line: "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." The Hays Code strictly prohibited profanity, and the censorship office tried to persuade Selznick to change the line to "Frankly, I just don't care."

Selznick appealed the decision, ultimately lobbying Hays himself in an October 1939 memo.  He never actually threatened to release the film without Hays Office approval.  Still, it was clear that he was digging in hard in support of Rhett Butler's famous last words.

Selznick's lobbying worked. In November 1939, shortly before Gone with the Wind's official release, the Hays Office revised its code. A strict ban on any profanity was amended, so that profanity was allowed by censor discretion if it was deemed to be "essential and required."

In short: David O. Selznick battled the Hays Office, and he won. That time, at least...

Rebecca (1940): Mrs. Danvers caresses Mrs. de Winter's
cheek with the sleeve of the late Rebecca's dress.

REBECCA: SELZNICK FORCED TO COMPROMISE.

"There is one drastic change that was forced on us by the Hays Office and that almost caused us to abandon the picture. I don't want (author Daphne du Maurier) to think we are imbeciles when she sees this change... It was something forced upon us."
-David O. Selznick, preparing a message regarding changes to Rebecca.

Selznick's next motion picture also ran into problems with the Hays Office. Joseph Breen, head of Production Code Administration, wrote to Selznick that the screenplay for Rebecca violated the Code. In his report on the preproduction script, Breen observed that it contained "inescapable inferences of sex perversion" and references to a further "alleged illicit relationship," as well as including an ending that directly violated the Code's specifications.

Selznick's memos reveal his frustration, with him even contemplating something he'd never threatened with Gone with the Wind: To release the movie without Hays Office approval. But he was exactly one film too late for that. Gone with the Wind was not just a movie; it was an event. By November 1939, it was apparent that Gone with the Wind was going to succeed no matter what he Hays Office did, so the only sensible course for Hays was to find a way to endorse it - even if that meant changing the rules.

I actually prefer Rebecca as a movie... but it was not a cultural phenomenon like Gone with the Wind.  Not even close.  I suspect cooler heads were able to talk Selznick into compromising, even if it damaged the story.

It wasn't an outright loss for Selznick. The final film flatly ignores Breen's first two objections. Sinister housekeeper Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson)'s adoration of the deceased Rebecca has an all but unmistakable sexual element. In one of the movie's best scenes, Joan Fontaine's heroine walks into the bedroom previously occupied by Rebecca.  The room has been kept unchanged, maintained practically as a shrine. Mrs. Danvers proudly walks her new mistress through the room. She shows off Rebecca's luxurious dresses, fondling the sleeve of one before using that same sleeve to caress the new Mrs. de Winter's cheek. The young woman is both mesmerized and repelled. Mrs. Danvers then shows off Rebecca's nightgown, made of sheer fabric, pushing her hand beneath the gown and marveling at how she can see her hand through it - at which point the heroine visibly recoils and flees. It's subtext... but it's pretty strong subtext. Meanwhile, the scripted references to another "illicit relationship" that censor Breen objected to? They remain entirely intact.

While Selznick won two out of three battles on Rebecca, he did not win when it came to the ending. The backstory was significantly altered to gain Hays Code approval. Selznick was so disappointed by the decision that he prepared an explanation and apology to author Daphne du Maurier in the memo quoted above.

Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot: The movie that broke The Hays Code.

SOME LIKE IT HOT AND THE FALL OF THE HAYS CODE

"A film which followed the code of the Hays Office to the strictest letter might succeed in being a great work of art, but not in a world in which a Hays Office exists."
-Thedor W. Adorno

The Code was always doomed. The one constant in history is that the standards and values of the public change. After World War II and throughout the 1950s, more and more filmmakers came to Hollywood from abroad - filmmakers with little respect or patience for the Hays Code and who likely found personal satisfaction in pushing it as far as they could.  Meanwhile, European films offering blatant sexuality made American fare look plain and timid by comparison.

In 1959, Billy Wilder released his comedy classic, Some Like It Hot, starring Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon as men who, after witnessing a gangland massacre, dress as women to evade the killers.  In the guise of a woman, Curtis falls for Marilyn Monroe, while Lemmon ends up engaged to another man. By today's standards, it plays like innocent fluff... But it played openly with ideas of fluid sexuality, and the Hays Office refused to endorse it.  The movie was further condemned by the Catholic League of Decency, which dubbed it "seriously offensive to Christian and traditional standards of morality and decency."

Neither Wilder nor studio United Artists were bothered in the least, and the lack of Hays Office approval did nothing to stop the film from being a huge critical and box office success. The Motion Picture Production Code would officially limp on until 1968 - but after Some Like It Hot, these guidelines, once upon a time enforced with absolute rigidity, were nothing but meaningless words on paper.

One suspects Selznick likely felt a tiny bit jealous that Wilder had done what he had once wanted to.

Review: Gone with the Wind
Review: Rebecca

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