I'm not sure what I was expecting from this 1960 movie written and directed by Billy Wilder and starring Jack Lemmon. They had just teamed up the previous year for the classic comedy, Some Like It Hot. So I guess that I was thinking The Apartment would be lighter than it was. That said the film won Best Picture at the 1960 Academy Awards, and Wilder himself picked up the Oscars for Best Director and Best Writer that year as well.

Lemmon, nominated for Best Actor for this, plays "Bud Baxter", a rather hapless junior executive in a faceless corporation. He wants to move up the corporate ladder, and wants to do so fast. And one quick way to the top is to rent out his own apartment to mid-level managers and senior execs so that they can have romantic dalliances unnoticed and undisturbed. Baxter's weakness in providing this service is displayed whenever he encounters his neighbour, who thinks Baxter's actually the one bringing back all the different girls (seemingly everynight).… more »

I'm not sure what I was expecting from this 1960 movie written and directed by Billy Wilder and starring Jack Lemmon. They had just teamed up the previous year for the classic comedy, Some Like It Hot. So I guess that I was thinking The Apartment would be lighter than it was. That said the film won Best Picture at the 1960 Academy Awards, and Wilder himself picked up the Oscars for Best Director and Best Writer that year as well.

Lemmon, nominated for Best Actor for this, plays "Bud Baxter", a rather hapless junior executive in a faceless corporation. He wants to move up the corporate ladder, and wants to do so fast. And one quick way to the top is to rent out his own apartment to mid-level managers and senior execs so that they can have romantic dalliances unnoticed and undisturbed. Baxter's weakness in providing this service is displayed whenever he encounters his neighbour, who thinks Baxter's actually the one bringing back all the different girls (seemingly everynight). Baxter bends over backwards defending this position, so as not to expose what his work colleagues.

But Baxter falls for a lowly lift operator at the company, played by the wonderfully young Shirley MacLaine (who also received a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her role here). As Baxter gets closer to her however, he discovers that she's been entertained at his flat by none other than his boss "Sheldrake", played rather sinisterly by one of America's best-loved TV actors of the 60's, Fred MacMurray.

This makes for a good, and sometimes tense, drama, as inevitably these strands meld together.

This is definitely a classic, and it lightens up by the end. You just go through some dark alleys to get there.