Shirley MacLaine, during the seminar she gave at my school, talked a lot about The Apartment, directed by Wilder, and starring Jack Lemmon and Fred MacMurray.
— In the final scene, where Miss Kubelik shows up at his apartment, and he’s packing, she breaks out the cards but he resists playing with her, and he finally blurts out: “I love you, Miss Kubelik!” She keeps shuffling. He repeats: “Did you hear what I said, Miss Kubelik? I said I absolutely adore you!” She slowly looks over at him, grins, and holds out the deck of cards to him, saying, “Shut up and deal.” There’s a moment between them – he smiles – she smiles, takes off her coat – the music swells, and he starts to deal the cards, and the movie is over. It’s a long well-written juicy scene ( Wilder wrote it with IAL Diamond, his writing partner)– one of those great movie scenes with a beginning, middle and end, like a mini-play, where the characters start out ONE way (he’s moving, he’s leaving, he’s getting out) and end up another way (they’re going to be together.) It’s all done in one take, which just makes me BEMOAN the current use of dueling close-ups in scenes such as this one. No. Billy Wilder let the audience watch some of his scenes like a play. He lets the audience choose who to look at. It’s very exciting. And second of all: the two of them did it perfectly on the first take, so what you are seeing in the final version is the first take of the scene. Billy Wilder watched the whole thing unfold through the camera, Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine hitting all the right notes, in perfect succession, with no cut-aways, in one extraordinary take. Wilder called: “CUT! PRINT!” And that was that.
— Shirley MacLaine and Lemmon would run through a scene. Wilder would say when they were done, “Okay, that was very good. Now do it again, only take out 13 and a half seconds.”
I’ve had The Apartment from Netflix sitting on my TV for several months now. I’ve never seen it, but Netflix recommended it based on how I ranked other films. Until I saw the Sheila stamp of approval I (obviously) didn’t have any urge to watch it. I’ll probably watch it tomorrow night now.
Scott – I have more great anecdotes about the filming of that movie, but I will spare you. It was the biggest hit of its day – it had something like 10 or 11 Oscar nominations. Really good movie.
Have fun!
That movie is great. I saw it last year, they were playing it for free at my university. I don’t normally go to the free showings but I’m really glad I went to see it.
Sheila,
My most favorite film ever!
Among so many things I love about this perfect movie (the cracked mirror…gawd! The derby…don’t get me started) is that it came out at a time when Hollywood specialized in these smug boys club “wink-wink cheating at the office with my missile-bra secretary behind-the-back-of my-battle-ax-wife-in-the-suburbs” ‘sex’ comedies. Lots of leering and winking and leadenedly hip references to sex while they swill back martinis. Not that I’m a prude. Invariably, the most offensive part of all those ‘sexy’ comedies is that they were neither.
With “The Apartment” Billy Wilder came along and skewered all that self-congratulatory boorishness and dealt with the realities of infidelity, all the stale liquor sleaziness and lies and lonliness that go hand in hand with people using other people. And in playing the truth of all that he tells this story that’s funny and sad and dramatic and romantic all in the same movie…
Anyway, an amazing film…movie-wise!
Love this movie, too! Love that when Fred MacMurray and Shirley go into the Chinese restaurant, the piano player starts playing “their” love theme. Love when Jack, with a bad cold, goes to a bar and does this hilarious drunk dance, cheek to cheek, with the loud girl who shot her straw wrappers at him. Love when the kindly wife of the doctor neighbor brings chicken soup to Shirley post-suicide attempt and said she thought Jack was “so clean and cut, a regular Ivy Leaguer.” Love when Jack nods in time with his adding machine. Love when Shirley gives Jack her carnation for good luck when Jack’s on his way to talk with Fred. Love when Jack says, “Meatball!” Love Edie Adams’ leopard coat and hat. Love Jack. Love Shirley. Love gin.