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The Apartment

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The Apartment (1960)

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90 %
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Reviews Counted: 40

Fresh: 36

Rotten:4

Average Rating: 8.3/10

Consensus: It has perhaps aged poorly, but in The Apartment, director Billy Wilder's customary cynicism is leavened here by tender humor, romance, and genuine pathos.

Runtime: 2 hrs 10 mins

Genre: Comedies

Synopsis: Billy Wilder's THE APARTMENT blends his customary harsh cynicism with a humane streak that appears only fleetingly in his films. It stars Jack Lemmon as C.C. Baxter, an office clerk who curries... Billy Wilder's THE APARTMENT blends his customary harsh cynicism with a humane streak that appears only fleetingly in his films. It stars Jack Lemmon as C.C. Baxter, an office clerk who curries favor with the executives in his office by giving them the key to his small apartment for the odd afternoon dalliance. Among them his is his callous boss, J.D. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray), who Baxter eventually learns is using his place to sleep with Miss Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), the sweet elevator operator the clerk has loved from afar. When Sheldrake coldly dumps the vulnerable young woman, she tries to commit suicide, but is saved by the intervention of Baxter. As the clerk lovingly nurses the young woman back to health he begins to realize, with the help of epigrammatic neighbor Dr. Dreyfuss (Jack Kruschen), exactly how much of a fool he has been. Wilder brilliant depiction of the average American office as a place of brutality, coldness, and alienation conjure up Kafka and Marx. The director seduces the audience into what appears to be an unusually frank sex comedy, but turns the tables in displaying the consequences of the executive's cold indifference. Lemmon and MacLaine both give career performances and MacMurray is memorable as the blandly smiling snake. [More]

Starring: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray, Edie Adams

Starring: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray, Edie Adams, Ray Walston, Jack Kruschen, Joan Shawlee, Hope Holiday, Naomi Stevens, David Lewis, Joyce Jameson

Director: Billy Wilder

Director: Billy Wilder
Screenwriter: Billy Wilder, I. A. L. Diamond
Producer: Billy Wilder
Composer: Adolph Deutsch

[See More Credits]

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Release:

Jun 19, 2001

No Details Exist
 
 

Reviews for The Apartment

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1 - 20 (sorted by date)
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A comedy of men's-room humours and water-cooler politics that now and then among the belly laughs says something serious and sad about the struggle for success, about what it often does to a man, and about the horribly small world of big business.

Full Review Source: TIME Magazine | comment Comment
02/18/09
TIME Magazine
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | comment Comment
10/18/08
Peter Bradshaw
Guardian [UK]
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Observer [UK] | comment Comment
10/18/08
Philip French
Observer [UK]

A true classic. It's about advancement, ambition, corruption and adultery, and it operates as both a satire and a sorrowful romance.

Full Review Source: Channel 4 Film | comment Comment
09/12/08
Daniel Etherington
Channel 4 Film

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: ReelViews | comment Comment
06/10/08
James Berardinelli
ReelViews
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Ah, Lemmon and MacLaine... what poetic chemistry.

comment Comment
03/23/08
Cole Smithey
ColeSmithey.com

Most of the time, it's up to director Wilder to sustain a two-hour-plus film on treatment alone, a feat he manages to accomplish more often than not, and sometimes the results are amazing.

Full Review Source: Variety | comment Comment
08/15/07
Variety Staff
Variety
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The overlong drawn-out one-hook themed Apartment seemed a tad more bare than furnished.

Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | comment Comment
03/16/07
Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

'The Apartment': The Film That Defines Me

Full Review Source: Passionate Moviegoer | comment Comment
02/13/07
Joe Baltake
Passionate Moviegoer

Billy Wilder somehow took a story about infidelity and suicide and made it into a comedy.

Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment Comment
01/01/07
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid

I wouldn't call this 1960 picture one of Billy Wilder's best comedies -- it's drab, sappy, and overlong at 125 minutes.

Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment 1 Comment
12/13/06
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Chicago Reader
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Billy Wilder further enhances his filmic resume with this tender portrayal of a lonely man who may soon get what he deserves. Jack Lemmon is terrific.

Full Review Source: Oscar Guy | comment Comment
11/15/06
Wesley Lovell
Oscar Guy

Diamond-sharp satire with a brilliant performance from Lemmon.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
06/24/06
Geoff Andrew
Time Out

No review available.

comment Comment
07/07/05
Joe Williams
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The first comedy to win the Oscar since 1944's Going My Way, the Apartment, the serio-comedy about "little people" in N.Y.C. (Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine) is not vintage Billy Wilder, but it's well-acted.

Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com | comment Comment
06/05/05
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com

Humanism and cleverness age like fine wine, even if served with spaghetti strained with a tennis racket.

Full Review Source: Arizona Daily Star | comment Comment
05/06/05
Phil Villarreal
Arizona Daily Star

It’s one of the most heartbreaking films I’ve ever seen.

Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | comment Comment
02/09/05
David Cornelius
eFilmCritic.com

No review available.

comment Comment
02/09/05
Robert Roten
Laramie Movie Scope

No review available.

comment Comment
10/26/04
Mark R. Leeper
rec.arts.movies.reviews

A classic comedy, showing Billy Wilder at his cynical best.

comment Comment
02/25/04
Bob Bloom
Journal and Courier (Lafayette, IN)
 
 
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