The Apartment on DVD - Pt. 1
The Best Picture of 1960 is out on 2 disc DVD
The art work on this new DVD promises a cheery romantic comedy. 1960's Best Picture Oscar winner, however, is much more than that
The Apartment on DVD
"You see, I have his problem with my apartment..."
So confesses Jack Lemmon about his second story bachelor pad at New York's 51 West 67th Street, in the opening voice-over of Billy Wilder's The Apartment, the 1960 Best Picture Oscar winner newly re-issued on 2 disc DVD.
The DVD, with its cheery, colorful art work (stars Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray smile at you from inside a giant keyhole), is pimping the film's charm a lot less innocently than Lemmon, as the spineless office middleman looking for promotion, pimps his apartment to the two-timing family men who are his higher-ups.
Those of us who have watched and loved this film for years are, like big boss MacMurray on to Lemmon, both put-out and convenience by the ruse. For we know that there is a lot more to our favorite film than this, and yet, we are ecstatic that it is still being valued by distributors, and that they are bothering to introduce it so wholeheartedly to those who have yet to experience it.
An Oppressive World
The Apartment is, yes, charming, but in addition, a masterpiece of lonely urbanity, a layered tale about the miracle of human connection in a dark, anonymous, self-serving world.
It's an oppressive universe perfectly conveyed by the production team: art director Alexander Trauner's spatial spoof of 1950's office life, with its rows upon rows of desks, like waves receding into a fluorescent sunset...cinematographer Joseph Lashelle's constant dwarfing and obscuring of the characters, with his depth of field and his dark lightning...Adolph Deutsch's schizophrenic score, alternating the promise suggested by Rachmaninoffian grandiosity with the sad reality implied by a schmaltzy saxophone.
Lemmon as Baxter
And trapped inside this world, "loyal, resourceful C.C. Baxter," a.k.a. Lemmon, the nervy nice guy who comes to see the error of his actions when he silently realizes he has perpetuated an abusive tryst involving the woman he loves.
In Lemmon, Wilder found the ideal Baxter. Lemmon is an actor who can blather, pout, or experience red-faced angry without ever betraying a fundamental innocence. It is this blind side that is the dramatic engine of the film: the thorough sincerity of Lemmon/Baxter's willingness to please; one ounce of self-awareness of the amorality of his actions and suddenly, The Apartment is renovated from weighty romantic comedy to tasteless bedroom farce.
