Billy Wilder's "The Apartment" starring Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, and Fred MacMurray

The Apartment (1960) is a romantic comedy directed by Billy Wilder and starring Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, and Fred MacMurray. The cast also includes Ray Walston and Edie Adams. The screenplay was written by Wilder and his long-time writing partner I. A. L. Diamond. The black and white cinematography was by Academy Award winner Joseph LaShelle (Laura). 

C C. "Bud" Baxter (Lemon) is an office drone at a large insurance company. To climb the corporate ladder, he lets several executives use his Upper West Side apartment for their extramarital affairs. With a steady stream of women coming and going from his apartment, his neighbors think he's a player.

Due to his "generosity" with his apartment, Bud starts moving up the corporate ladder. Bud develops a crush on elevator operator, Fran Kubelik. Things go a bit crazy when Bud finds out that his boss Jeff Sheldrake (MacMurray) is having an affair with Fran and using his apartment for their trysts.

Will Bud look the other way and keep moving up the ladder, or will he decide the corporate world isn't all it's cracked up to be?

Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine

Billy Wilder (1906 - 2002) was an Austrian-born American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He won six Academy Awards for his writing and direction and was nominated twenty-one times over a career that spanned five decades. Wilder started his career as a writer, penning the screenplays for Ninotchka (1939), Ball of Fire (1942), Double Indemnity (1945), The Lost Weekend (1946), Sunset Boulevard (1951)  Boulevard (1951), Sabrina (1955), Some Like it Hot (1960), and The Apartment (1961). As a director, he won Academy Awards for directing The Lost Weekend (1946) and The Apartment (1961). Wilder directed fourteen different actors in Oscar-nominated roles. He is considered one of the most versatile directors from Hollywood’s Classical period.

Jack Lemmon (1925 - 2001) was an American actor who was successful in both comedic and dramatic roles. He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in Mr. Roberts (1955). He then went on to a very successful collaboration with director Billy Wilder. Some of the Wilder films that Lemmon starred in include Some Like it Hot (1959), The Apartment (1960), and Irma la Douce (1963). Lemmon won the Academy Award for Best Actor for Save the Tiger (1973). Other Lemmon films include The Odd Couple (1968), The Out-of-Towners (1970), The China Syndrome (1979), Missing (1982), and Grumpy Old Men (1993).

Shirley MacLaine (1934 - ) is an American actress who made her film debut in Alfred Hitchcock's production of The Trouble with Harry (1955) for which she won the Golden Globe award for New Star of the Year - Actress. Her movie career took off immediately and she had starring roles in Around the World in 80 Days (1956),  Hot Spell (1958), Some Came Running (1958), The Apartment (1960), The Children's Hour (1961), and Irma la Douce (1963). In 1983, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Terms of Endearment. MacLaine's younger brother is actor, director, and producer, Waren Beatty.

Fred MacMurray (1908 – 1991) was an American film actor who appeared in more than 100 movies and had a successful career on television as well. MacMurray signed a contract with Paramount Pictures in 1934 and was a major leading man by 1935. He co-starred with the studio's top leading actresses including Carole Lombard, Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard, and Madeleine Carroll. By 1943, MacMurray was the highest-paid actor in Hollywood and the fourth-highest-paid person in the United States. Probably his most famous role is as insurance agent Walter Neff in Double Indemnity (1944) co-starring Barbara Stanwyck and Edward G. Robinson. During the late 1950s and 1960s, MacMurray gained new fame as the star of films produced by Walt Disney including The Shaggy Dog (1959), The Absent-Minded Professor (1961), Son of Flubber (1963), and Charley and the Angel (1973).

The Apartment  trivia

• To make the open office space seem bigger, they put adult actors in front, and children dressed as adults in the back. The last rows were cardboard cutouts.
• Wilder shot the Christmas office party scene on December 23, 1959, so everyone was in the holiday spirit. 
• The Apartment was the last black and white film to win Best Picture until The Artist (2011).
• Billy Wilder became the first person to win Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay.
• Paul Douglas was cast as Sheldrake but had a heart attack before he was to start filming. Fred MacMurray replaced him as a favor to Wilder.

To watch the movie on YouTube, click on the link below.

To join the discussion online on February 21, 2022, at 6:30 p.m Central Time, click here. Once you RSVP, you'll receive an invitation and a link to join the discussion on Zoom. 

Discussion questions

1. How does the movie present Baxter?
2. How does the director illustrate the alienation of office life?
3. The film is considered a romantic comedy. Does that seem like the correct classification?
4. What is the symbolism of the $100 bill that Sheldrake gives to Fran?
5. Is the ending satisfying?

Screening of Billy Wilder's "The Apartment" at the Daystar Center December 9

“Holiday” Series: The Apartment (1960)
Where: Daystar Center, 1550 S. State Street
When: December 9, 2017
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Hosted by Stephen Reginald


The Apartment (1960) features Bud Baxter (Jack Lemmon) as a lonely office worker in a corporate insurance company in New York City. In an effort to climb the corporate ladder, he lends his Upper West Side apartment to some influential company managers who use if for their extramarital affairs.

The company personnel director, Jeff D. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray) discovers what Baxter is doing, but instead of punishing him, he insists on using his apartment too. Enter elevator operator Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine) who Bud has had his eye on for weeks. Bud is disappointed to discover that Fran is Sheldrake’s latest fling when she stands him up on a date. What happens next is nothing short of amazing.

Directed by Billy Wilder and written by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, The Apartment won the Best Picture Oscar for 1960 as well as awards for Best Director and Writing.

Have some Joe and Enjoy the Show!

You can bring food and beverages into the auditorium; we even have small tables set up next to some of the seats. General Admission: $5 Students and Senior Citizens: $3.

Join the Chicago Film club; join the discussion

Twice a month we screen classic films and have a brief discussion afterward. For more information, including how to join (it’s free), click here. The Venue 1550 is easily accessible by the CTA. Please visit Transit Chicago for more information on transportation options.

Stephen Reginald is a freelance writer and editor. He has worked at various positions within the publishing industry for over 25 years. Most recently he was executive editor for McGraw-Hill’s The Learning Group Division. A long-time amateur student of film, Reginald hosts “Chicago Film Club,” a monthly movie event held in the South Loop, for the past two years. Reginald has also taught several adult education film classes at Facets Film School, Chicago.

Classic Movie Man’s Favorite Christmas Movies: 2015 Edition

Another Christmas season and another challenge to come up with more holiday classics from Hollywood’s golden age. While some of these films aren’t Christmas movies per se, they all feature the holiday season. For a lists of more holiday movie classics, see the links below. Enjoy and Merry Christmas!

3 Godfathers—1948 John Wayne, Pedro Armendariz and Harry Carey Jr. play cattle rustlers who rob a bank in Welcome, Arizona. When they are pursued into the desert, they lose their horses and end up walking in search of water. During their search, they come upon a woman who is about to give birth. With the help of the fugitives, she has a baby boy. She names the baby after the men who helped her in her time of need. Before dying the mother, asks the three godfathers to take care of her baby. William (Carey) wounded in the leg during the bank robbery dies during their trek. Pete (Armendariz) breaks his leg and cannot travel any further. Robert (Wayne) soldiers on in a semi-delirious state, and somehow manages to make it to New Jerusalem, with the baby, where he collapses. He is arrested, but is considered a hero because of his heroism and is sentenced to the minimum of a year and a day in jail. Directed by the legendary John Ford, 3 Godfathers is sort of a western version of The Three Wise Men shot in brilliant Technicolor.

Backstory: Ford filmed a silent adaptation (Marked Men) in 1919 and Richard Boleslawski directed the 1936 version (Three Godfathers) starring Chester Morris, Lewis Stone, and Walter Brennan.

Come To The Stable—1949 Loretta Young and Celeste Holm play two French nuns who come to the New England town of Bethlehem, determined to build a children’s hospital with the help of the locals there. The screenplay is based on a short story written by Clare Boothe Luce (The Women) and a screenplay by Sally Benson (Meet Me In St. Louis). Besides the two main stars, the supporting cast includes Hugh Marlowe, Elsa Lanchester, Thomas Gomez, Dooley Wilson, and Regis Toomey. Do the enterprising nuns get their hospital? What do you think? The film features some beautiful black and white cinematography by Joseph LaShelle (Laura) and able direction by Henry Koster (The Bishop’s Wife).

Backstory: Come To The Stable was nominated for seven Academy Awards including a Best Actress nod for Loretta Young and Best Supporting Actress nods for Celeste Holm and Elsa Lanchester. Clare Boothe Luce converted to Roman Catholicism in 1946, the inspiration for this inspirational tale.

Susan Slept Here—1954 Dick Powell plays Mark Christopher, an Academy Award winning screenwriter with writers block. Desperately trying to flesh out a decent script, Mark gets a surprise visit on Christmas Eve. Sergeant Sam Hanlon (Herb Vigran) delivers seventeen-year-old Susan Landis (Debbie Reynolds) to his fancy bachelor apartment. Susan, abandoned by her mother was arrested for vagrancy and assaulting a sailor. Rather than have her stay in jail over the holidays, the sergeant suggests that Susan stay with him until the day after Christmas, knowing that Mark was interested in writing a script on juvenile delinquency. Seriously, what could go wrong? Well, for one, Mark has a very jealous fiancee (Anne Francis) and Susan turns into quite the handful. And it gets worse when Susan develops a crush on Mark. When Mark finds out that Susan will most likely spend her days in a detention facility until she is 18, Mark whisks her off to Las Vegas and marries her. Mark tells his friends he only married her to prove to the judge that Susan has turned her life around. Mark goes to extremes to avoid consummating the marriage, but Susan has fallen hard for Mark. Will this May-December romance work? A fun comedy if you can get past the idea of a 35-year-old falling for a teenager, but that was Hollywood in the 50s. And dig all the cool modern Christmas decorations, including Mark’s tree!

Backstory: This was Dick Powell’s last movie screen appearance. Debbie Reynolds was 22 and Dick Powell was 50—not passable for 35 at all, sorry—when Susan Slept Here was released. The cinematography was by the legendary Nicholas Musaraca, famous for his great black and white camerawork with noir classics like Out of the Past.

Bell, Book and Candle—1958 Set during the Christmas holiday season, Bell, Book and Candle features an odd group of witches and warlocks living and working their magic in New York’s Greenwich Village. Kim Novak plays Gillian “Gil” Holroyd owner of an art gallery of African art. James Stewart is Shep Anderson, a book publisher who Gil is smitten with. When Gil learns that Shep is about to marry Merle Kittridge (Janice Rule), Gil’s old college rival, she casts a spell on Shep and falls in love with him herself. Things get complicated (Don’t they always? Well, yeah, it’s the movies) when Gillian has to choose whether or not she is willing to give up her supernatural powers for love. The movie features a great supporting cast that includes Jack Lemmon as Novak’s bongo-playing-warlock brother, Ernie Kovacs as a best-selling author, Hermione Gingold, Elsa Lanchester (as two older witches), and Rule. And let’s not forget Pyewacket, Gil’s magical Siamese cat.

Backstory: Harry Cohn agreed to loan Kim Novak to Paramount to make Vertigo if he could get James Stewart to costar with Novak in Bell, Book and Candle. This film is also considered the last film where Stewart played a leading romantic role. The creators of the hit TV show Bewitched credited Bell, Book and Candle as partial inspiration.

The Apartment—1960 This Billy Wilder classic stars Jack Lemmon as Calvin Clifford “Bud” Baxter, a lonely office worker at a big national insurance company in New York City. In order to climb the corporate ladder, Bud lets four company managers use his apartment in New York’s Upper West Side as a get-away for their extramarital affairs. This causes some problems with Bud’s neighbors who think he’s a loud, party animal lady-killer. When the personnel director, J.D. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray) finds out why Bud’s managers gave him such glowing reviews, Sheldrake gives Bud a promotion in exchange for exclusive use of his apartment on demand. He even gives him two tickets to The Music Man—the hottest Broadway ticket of the day—to seal the deal. Bud has his eyes on Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine) an elevator operator (remember them?) at his office building. He asks her to The Music Man, which she agrees to, but she stands Bud up at the theater. Bud soon discovers that Fran is having an affair with Sheldrake who promised to marry her only to go back to his family at Christmas. Fran is so distraught by this that she attempts suicide. When Sheldrake asks Bud for the key to his apartment on New Year’s Eve, Bud refuses and quits his job. Sheldrake tells Fran that Bud quit the firm at a New Year’s Eve party, which makes her realize that Bud is the man that’s cared for her all along. With one of the most famous closing lines in film history, The Apartment will warm your heart.

Backstory: This is the second film Jack Lemmon made with Billy Wilder. Paul Douglas was set to play J.D. Sheldrake, but he passed away before production started and was replaced by Fred MacMurray who hadn’t worked with Wilder since Double Indemnity (1944). MacMurray was regularly harassed in public after the film was released. One lady went so far as to hit him with her pocketbook!

There are so many great classic movies to watch during the holidays. The above are just a small sampling. What are your favorites? For a list of some other classic Christmas movies, click on the links below.

Classic Movie Man's Favorite Christmas Movies: 2010 Edition
Classic Movie Man's Favorite Christmas Movies: 2011 Edition

Classic Movie Man's Favorite Christmas Movies: 2012 Edition

Classic Movie Man's Favorite Christmas Movies: 2013 Edition

Classic Movie Man's Favorite Christmas Movies: 2014 Edition