The Apartment (1960)
Opened at the Astor Theater on Broadway and 45th street and the Plaza Theater on 58th street near Madison in Manhattan on June 15, 1960.
I revisited this film on a plane back to New York City recently. The Apartment opens with an aerial shot of the city, most likely filmed from a helicopter or small airplane, as Jack Lemmon reads off stats of the number of inhabitants in the sprawling metropolis below. While all the films in this series share the same location, there is also something so unique and singular about a New York City romance, in real life and portrayed in the movies.
The plot of the film is one that could only have been set in this city. A time-share apartment for men whose wives live in the suburbs, for them to sneak around with women who work in their office building. A fast-paced, gossipy, tiny spaces, crowded, anything-goes, loose morales, New York City film. This also happens to be another cheating movie, if anyone is keeping count. For a city with so many people and so much going on, it’s always miraculous how in real life, as well as in the movies, there’s no hiding from anyone.
Ultimately, the film tells a story about a woman dating in New York. Bad man after bad man, until one goofy and kind one (maybe too good for his own good), comes along and insists on sticking around. Popular at the time, award-winning, and glowingly remembered, The Apartment is a timeless classic that is a foundational part of the romance genre and ever-referenced throughout that history.
The Apartment
Producer/Director: Billy Wilder; Writers: Billy Wilder, I.A.L. Diamond; Cinematographer: Joseph LaShelle; Editor: Daniel Mandell; Music: Adolph Deutsch; Art Director: Alexander Trauner
Cast: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray, Ray Walston, Hope Holiday, Edie Adams
Released by United Artists in association with the Mirisch Corporation at the Astor Theater and the Plaza Theater in Manhattan on June 15, 1960.
Runtime: 125 minutes.
You might not think a movie about a fellow who lends his rooms to the married exeutives of his office as a place for their secret love affairs would make a particularly funny or morally presentable show, especially when the young fellow uses the means to get advanced in his job.
But under the celever supervision of Billy Wilder, who helped write the script, then produced and directed “The Apartment,” which opened at the Astor and the Plaza yesterday, the idea is run into a gleeful, tender and even sentimental film.
New York Times review by Bosley Crowther. June 16, 1960.
Biting, if dated satire on interoffice politics concerns a lowly corporate employee (Lemmon) trying to get ahead by loaning his apartment to boss (MacMurray) for illicit affairs. Multiple Oscar winner (Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Story, and Screenplay) is alternately tender and ironic, romantic and grim. Another bittersweet gem from acclaimed writer/director Wilder.
The Apartment entry. Blockbuster Entertainment. Guide to Movies and Videos 1998.
The film originated with co-authors Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond as a way to continue working with their lead Jack Lemmon after filming Some Like It Hot with him in 1959. Shirley MacLaine had also been in mind for the project from its inspection. I.A.L. Diamond described the story in a New York Times piece to promote the film as follows:
“The Apartment” is the story of a young bachelor working for an insurance comany, who insures his advancement by lending the key to his apartment to his married superiors. Originally, it had been conceived by Billy Wilder as a play. But the one thing you could not show on stage was that huge office, and the anonymmous occupant of Desk Number 861 who ultimaely works his way up to a paneled office with three windows. So we decided to write it directly for the screen.
’Apartment’ With View by I.A.L. Diamond. New York Times. June 12, 1960.
The article ends with a hilariously biting aside that highlights the shifts and polarity in the film industry in the early 1960s.
In a way, I suppose, “The Apartment” represnents the “old wave” of moviemaking. It was shot in a studio, using a script and professional actors. Every frame of film is in focus, there is not a single shot of drifting clouds, and no scene was photographed through a wet paper tissue. It is very simply a story designed to entertain millions of moviegoers, not to tickle the fancies of three judges at a film festial in Zagreb, Yugoslavia. I hope we have succeeded.
’Apartment’ With View by I.A.L. Diamond. New York Times. June 12, 1960.
Although a lot of the film was shot in a studio in Hollywood like most films of the time, The Apartment does feature a handful of real and iconic New York City locations. The production was in New York City in November of 1959, before moving to Los Angeles. The opening shot of the film shows midtown Manhattan (the UN building, the Chrysler Building, etc.), and most of the office exteriors were filmed in the Financial District. Other locations include Central Park and the Majestic Theater exterior on West 44th Street. Lemmon’s fictional apartment address is at 55 West 69th Street, setting most of the rest of the film (whether in reality or fiction) in the Upper West Side.
The publicity for the film included many wacky stunts, one of which involved an apartment recreation in a New Orleans furniture store display window that was inhabited by a woman (“The Apartment Girl”) for 10 days prior to the opening of the film.
United Artists paid for minimum advertisements in the New York Times and other film industry magazines and newspapers. This ad below is the only one I could find in the first month after the film’s opening that showed its stars and was bigger than an inch. Most of the other instances were squeezed between larger attention-grabbing ads for Pyscho, Bells are Ringing and The Rat Race (the latter two were also romances set in New York City.)
The film opened in New York City on June 15, 1960, at both the Astor Theater on Broadway and 45th Street and the Plaza Theater on 58th Street near Madison.
Reviews for the apartment were glowing. Film Bulletin’s review read “The “Some Like It Hot” team delivers again. Topflight comedy with some throat-clutching moments. Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine great. Excellent for all types of audiences. UA promotion will boost grosses.”
That year, United Artists, which ten years prior was on the brink of bankruptcy, earned a record-breaking 41 nominations at the 33rd Academy Awards, with The Apartment leading the pack. The other United Artist films nominated were The Alamo, Elmer Gantry, Inherit the Wind, Exodus, The Facts of Life, Tunes of Glory, and The Magnificent Seven. The Apartment was nominated for ten of those Academy Awards and won five of them, including Best Picture, Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen, and Best Director. Billy Wilder became the first triple-winner in Oscar history. Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine both won Golden Globes for best actor and actress in a Comedy or Musical respectively and the film also won Best Motion Picture - Comedy at the awards.
In an unlikely order of operations, the film was later adapted by Neil Simon (author of Sweet Charity) into a Broadway musical called Promises, Promises, which opened at the Shubert Theatre on December 1, 1968.
The film is not currently streaming but is available to rent on various platforms (and as of a couple of weeks ago you can watch it on Delta flights). You can watch the trailer here.
More romance to come…
xx Paris