The Apartment

The Review
The Apartment(1960)

Get ready to experience a roller coaster ride of emotions when you watch this movie. It makes you laugh, it makes you cry, and there is that silken touch of romance.

The movie starts with Bud - the central character - introducing himself and what seems like searching a reason for himself to survive the daily grind of life.

My name is C.C. Baxter - C. for Calvin, C. for Clifford -- however, most people call me Bud. I've been with Consolidated Life for three years and ten months. I started in the branch office in Cincinnati, then transferred to New York. My take-home pay is $94.70 a week, and there are the usual fringe benefits. The hours in our department are 8:50 to 5:20 ---- they're staggered by floors, so that sixteen elevators can handle the 31,259 employees without a serious traffic jam. As for myself, I very often stay on at the office and work for an extra hour or two -- especially when the weather is bad. It's not that I'm overly ambitious -- it's just a way of killing time, until it's all right for me to go home. You see, I have this little problem with my apartment --

(Courtesy: The Daily Script)

The moment he says that he stays back for an hour or two, I can’t stop smiling because I realize that there is a Bud in me and for sure in most of us. He gives the initial impression of a happy-go-lucky guy who cares the least about anything else. Not far into the movie, you realize that all is not well with Bud, with his not so healthy lifestyle of eating convenience food, drinking the leftover by someone who had been to his apartment and his late nights. And you soon find out that all this struggle is for, he wants to move up the corporate ladder by means of lending his apartment to a few of his company executives who in-turn can put in a word of good to Jeff, the Personnel Director played by Fred MacMurray.

What ensues is quite comical as everyone needs Bud's apartment and things entangle even more when Jeff and Bud fall for the same lady - Fran Kubelik played by Shirley MacLaine(Love her hairdo, must've been quiet a rage in those days). Some of the comedy scenes are quite predictable like the blade in the razor and some where the other characters like Dr. Dreyfuss and his wife Mrs. Mildred Dreyfuss do their job. Dr. Dreyfuss and his wife have important roles of reviving and taking care of Fran when things go wrong. The little emotions and complexities between Bud and Dr. Dreyfuss have been well directed by Billy Wilder.

There are some scenes where you see Jack Lemmon shining. For instance, when he takes the blame for Fran's predicament or, when he raises a finger in remonstration and immediately asks Matuschka if he cares for a Martini or, when he disappointingly throws away his keys to the apartment in order to become a mensch.

All good things must come to an end and in the end, you feel sorry and happy for Bud when Fran calls him a damn fool in a really concerned tone. All in all, The Apartment is a wonderful movie - Movie-wise, laugh-wise, love-wise, or otherwise-wise! Love the performances by Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray.

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