Comments on: “Shut up and deal…”

By: يوتيوب

يوتيوب — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:56:29 +0000

He was a go-to guy.

By: Disneys

Disneys — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 01:40:22 +0000

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By: newcritics - » The Newcritics Year in Review

newcritics - » The Newcritics Year in Review — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 01:17:09 +0000

[...] of Hitchcock’s almost over-hyped soundstage thriller edged out the pure LOL appreciation The Apartment and the bloggy ramble through the dark Manhattan of The Sweet Smell of Success. (You may, of [...]

By: gargouri2001

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By: David Ehrenstein

David Ehrenstein — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:24:11 +0000

Melville said MacMurray “invented underplaying.” You can se that quite clearyl here as he's a complete monster, but if we're cued to that fact right away the film falls apart. he hides his rattiness perfectly. I don't agree about “the skeeve factor.” Lemmon's Baxter is for the most part a sad and lathetically lonely man. I ove the way he hanngs all over Hope Holliday in the bar is sensational. And there's nothing “cute” about MacLaine's suicide attempt.

In many ways “The Apartment” conveys the true spririt of Christmans just as “Christmas Holiday” does. It's suicidal depression to the Max!

By: gerardjones

gerardjones — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:50:44 +0000

I think MacMurray showed a lot cojones by taking on this role while he was shifting his career into Disney comedies and M3S. Especially at a time when the “wholesome image” was so important, especially on TV. Easy to imagine either Uncle Walt or his TV sponsors (General Motors, I think), flipping out over Sheldrake. Don't know what fed into his decision–not caring, loving Wilder, wanting to prove he wasn't a sap?–but it was a great one.

By: gerardjones

gerardjones — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:46:35 +0000

I kinda stuck my comment on this in the wrong place, up above….

By: gerardjones

gerardjones — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:45:43 +0000

Van Dyke had a Lemmony style he arrived at on his own–I think the times nurtured such–but I'm sure he and Carl Reiner were also conscious of building Rob Petrie, their own sensitive, hapless, loveable, modern New York husband/lover on The Apartment. Biggest comedy of 1960, big rage at the Oscars in early '61, DVD Show hits the air in Sept. '61…

By: gerardjones

gerardjones — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:42:46 +0000

Critical opinions of Wilder in the '60s are interesting because of the way he was criticized both by the “wholesome” mainstream for his cynicism and by the edgy art-house types for his vulgarity and sentimentalism. Both the Catholic League of Decency and Pauline Kael went to town on “Kiss Me Stupid.” Looking back, both sides seem wrong to me, and yet both sides make sense, because he was unique in the way he stayed within what was entertaining and reassuring to most American moviegoers while at the same time exposing our hypocrisies and compromises.In the end, “The Apartment” resonates far more with me as a portrait of real people trying to make sense of a morally upside-down world than something Kael would have praised at the time, say “La Dolce Vita.” (Don't get me wrong, I like L.D.V.–just comparing it to The Apt as a “relatable” portrait of almost-real people.)

By: Dan Leo

Dan Leo — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:16:39 +0000

Y'know, I love Wilder, but for perhaps completely subjective reasons this is one of my least favorite films of his. I've just never been able to get over what I can only call “the skeeve factor”. I agree with Dave Ehrenstein that this may be Wilder's most European film, and somehow I think I would find it easier to take if it were a German or French movie from the late 30s, and not a German/French movie queasily transplanted to 1960s Manhattan. And I love Jack Lemmon but he's just way too “busy” for me in this. My favorite part of the movie oddly enough is Fred MacMurray, who I think plays the part coldly and brilliantly, so refreshing opposite the near-terminal cutesiness of Lemmon and MacLaine. Watching the movie again the other night I was reminded of an interview in a film rag (the lamented “Take One”) I read back around 1972 or so with the great Jean-Pierre Melville. The interviewer asked him who his favorite actor was and he said: “Fred MacMurray.”

By: David Ehrenstein

David Ehrenstein — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:32:49 +0000

Sorry I wasn't in here last night. This is one of my favorite Wilders. The Big Moment is right in the middle when Lemmon's C.C. Baxter gets his bowler hat and ask's MacLaine's Miss Kubelik if she has a mirror, and when she hand him the cracked mirror of her compact he learns EVERYTHING. It's a perfect visual and dramtic idea. In ertain ways this is Wilder's most German film. The view of office politics and Big City Living is very Weimar. I could easily see Fassbinder making a variation on this had he emigrated. Yes this is “Mad Men” territory but “The Apartment” was a contemporary film and “Mad Men” is a period piece. All the difference in the world. The climax of the film is MacLaine ditching McMurray in the Chines restaurant and running down the street with a big smile on her face as the music rises. I never fail to burst inot tears every time I see this. Happy endings get to me that way. And Woody Allen TOTALLY rips it off in “Manhattan.” But that film doesn't so much as raise a sniffle.

By: clairehelene7

clairehelene7 — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:49:48 +0000

I'm sorry I missed this discussion, as I love this movie. Sounds like you all had fun here. (Lance, your opening post was great!)

By: tomwatson

tomwatson — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:21:40 +0000

Ah that's well-said - you've put your finger on it. They are behaving badly according to the usual public mores (certainly of 1960) yet they're semi-forced into those actions by those with more power in big business. Essential decency - I buy that. (Also, I don't consider sentiment to be an epithet against film quality - but that's just me).

By: James S.

James S. — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:55:32 +0000

I'm guessing he needed a payday to pop for a KOKOSCHKA.

http://arte.observatorio.info/wp-content/upload...

By: noelbotevera

noelbotevera — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:52:45 +0000

I don't think he did science fiction, or horror. But what he did was cherce.

By: James S.

James S. — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:50:50 +0000

I'm guessing he needed a payday to pop for a KOKOSCHKA.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=...

By: Vanwall

Vanwall — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:46:24 +0000

He was a go-to guy.

By: Mannion

Mannion — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:45:10 +0000

Last thought from me because I need to take my five aspirin and climb into bed. But on the subject of Wilder's range as a director: The Spirit of St Louis??????? Who thought to put him on that one?

By: James S.

James S. — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:42:26 +0000

We shouldn't forget that Dr. and Mrs. Dreyfuss wound up snoozing through the whole ordeal.

By: noelbotevera

noelbotevera — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:39:51 +0000

For the record my girl and I's theme song is Weird Al's “I Get the Feeling You Don't Love Me Anymore.” Sophomoric, but there it is.

By: Mannion

Mannion — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:38:43 +0000

Vanwall, it was all piano music for us. I've known some people for whom it was kazzoos.

By: noelbotevera

noelbotevera — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:37:22 +0000

I think but I'm not sure it's Kubelik's suicide theme.

That latest 'disaster' isn't averted by Baxter; just happens in Kubelik's head. But I do think we're supposed to be zinged by it, at least while she does the Stairmaster bit–it's when we see the foaming bottle that we're supposed to connect it with the film's last running gag.

Difficult posting here. Heavy traffic? And I wish I could edit my spelling…

By: Vanwall

Vanwall — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:31:40 +0000

Didn't those violins play for your girl when she ran after you? I swear…. But the gunshot was needed for the release of tension - so he could sap you when you stuck your head in the door, and all those little stars make ya goofy.

By: Mannion

Mannion — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:31:34 +0000

Like I said, I agree about the music. Plus, isn't that Fran and *Sheldrake's* song?

By: Mannion

Mannion — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:29:20 +0000

Although, Noel, I am with you on the music there at the end.

By: noelbotevera

noelbotevera — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:28:37 +0000

You're right, Baxter should't of died, or the movie should have had a darker tone. I don't think we needed that fake gunshot tho–or the voilins as Kubelik runs up the steps.

By: Vanwall

Vanwall — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:24:30 +0000

This one is a sugar-coated poison-frog dart - it's indictment is more of the audience than it is of H'wood - there but for the grace of God go I, or the grace of forgiving friends, or wives or lovers - its message is implicit: You are them.

By: Campaspe

Campaspe — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:19:13 +0000

But I think the end is perfectly in keeping with what's gone before — a series of disasters, barely averted by the main character's essential decency. It would wreck the tone if Baxter died, where would that come from? The movie's subversive aspect is that you are being asked to sympathize with two people who are behaving quite badly, one having an affair with a married man (with kids yet) and another who's let his apartment become a cathouse. You're fighting against the repulsion you might feel otherwise, whereas with SB it's a pure poison dart leveled at Hollywood.

By: Mannion

Mannion — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:17:55 +0000

I'm not sure exactly what that means, except that it suggests that in 1960 things were more complicated and more interesting than Mad Men often makes them out to have been.

By: noelbotevera

noelbotevera — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:15:31 +0000

The bottle was a running gag whose time has come, sure. But we're not meant to think he didn't off himself? That only Miss Kubelik was fooled? Seems cruel, but that I like better. Don't buy it, though–seems like one of those Hong Kong movies, where they have the tragic endign, then–hey, presto! He turns out to be alive after all.

I do love Hong Kong films, don't get me wrong. But that kind of ending–which doesn't always happen in Hong Kong, thank goodness–keeps me from taking some of their melodrama too seriously.

By: James S.

James S. — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:13:22 +0000

I thought the ceilings should look the same as I remembered them in the 4th grade. But I wasn't writing copy for DDB in a
Madison Avenue office building, I was chucking my way through “Wide Horizons” at Valley View school.

http://www.juliascollectibles.com/hj125.jpg

By: Mannion

Mannion — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:13:09 +0000

Good point.

By: Mannion

Mannion — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:11:17 +0000

At any rate, C.C.'s suicide is all in her head. If it was in ours, or really was meant to be, then I'd definitely agree with the charge of sentimentality.

By: noelbotevera

noelbotevera — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:10:32 +0000

Two things:

Case in point of a transplanted German with less sentiment: Fritz Lang (okay, Austrian) in, oh, Fury, and Clash By Night, and While the City Sleeps, and even Rancho Notorious. That bit of music while Miss Kubelik runs up the stairs to the presumed dead hero is a dead giveaway–

And Huston may have pioneered ceilings in Maltese, but so did Welles in Kane, same year…

By: Mannion

Mannion — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:08:24 +0000

Noel, there might have been a better way, but I don't think Wilder meant *us* to be fooled by the champagne cork. That bottle arrives a long at the apartment a long time before the last scene and it keeps being brought out only to go un-popped, the last time in the scene just before Fran runs out on Sheldrake—Baxter offers it to Dr Dreyfuss for his party and the doctor turns it down, “Booze we don't need.” It's the Chekhov's gun of champagne bottles.