Apartment (1960)

80%

A vigorous and satirical critique of the materialistic hypocrisy usually associated with sexual promiscuity and marital infidelity. Most of the married men here are completely incapable of keeping their hands off women half their age and most of the girls delude themselves into thinking that they will divorce their wives for them. Also a solid satire on the regimentation and routinisation of office life.

As you would expect from Billy WILDER, the humor is sharp and witty and the satire focuses on the choices we all must make between love and career. Much of the comedy centers around a neighbor's belief that Jack LEMMON is sleeping with all and sundry when his apartment is actually being used by five of his senior office colleagues for their amorous trysts. His meteoric rise to the executive suite is purely the result of this sexual sub letting not any relevant business acumen on his part and he finds himself in love with one of the kept women which could upset the whole cosy arrangement. Deep down this is one of the finest romantic comedies ever made because it is grounded in solid monochrome reality rather than fantasy.

LEMMON is his usual nebbish self; while Shirley MacLAINE steals the show with a performance of great subtlety as the depressive elevator girl with a heart of gold. Fred MacMURRAY plays against type as her amoral, married lover.

Copyright © 2014 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.