The Apartment

1960.
#93 / #80
Winner of 5 Academy Awards.

C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) lets his bosses use his apartment to carry on their affairs. Baxter falls in love with Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), one of his bosses' mistresses, after Baxter comes home to find her overdosed on sleeping pills. It's a romantic comedy!

Eddie: Back before I learned to appreciate a good black-and-white movie, THE APARTMENT was one of the few old movies that I thought was worth watching. Jack Lemmon moves through the film's emotional highs and lows with the grace and precision of a sculptor. Billy Wilder and Izzy Diamond weave a great story, simple and symmetrical. Nearly every joke, gag, and story in the first two acts are paid off in the third. And Wilder's reliance on the long take and dolly moves makes the movie feel more like a Broadway play than a movie. (The movie was later adapted into the Broadway musical PROMISES, PROMISES.) I could talk forever about the dolly moves in the movie. I think they reflect a patience that has completely evaporated from movies. At the risk of sounding like a crotchety old-timer, few directors today (namely M. Night Shyamalan and Woody Allen) rely on the master shot the way Wilder did back then.

Sarah: Unlike Eddie, I've always appreciated the classics. And this is a sweet one, though not my favorite. It's not the funniest romantic-comedy, it's not the most romantic, but it is the Jack Lemmon-ist. I think this film had landed on the list largely due to Jack. He is easy to fall in love with and acts as the heart of the film.

Why You Should See It: Jack Lemmon. No scene in particular. Really the whole movie.