33rd Academy Awards · 1961
The Apartment
Directed by Billy Wilder
“Movie-wise, there has never been anything like it - laugh-wise, love-wise, or otherwise-wise!”
The story
Bud Baxter is a minor clerk in a huge New York insurance company, until he discovers a quick way to climb the corporate ladder. He lends out his apartment to the executives as a place to take their mistresses. Although he often has to deal with the aftermath of their visits, one night he's left with a major problem to solve.
What critics & audiences say
Tomatometer94%Fresh#30 of 98 winnersFamous lines
Bud: I love you, Miss Kubelik...Did you hear what I said, Miss Kubelik? I absolutely adore you.
Fran: Shut up and deal!
Fran: Why can't I ever fall in love with somebody nice like you?
Bud: Yeah, well, that's the way it crumbles, cookie-wise.
…When you're in love with a married man you shouldn't wear mascara.
I've decided to become a mensch. You know what that means? A human being.
Bud: The mirror... It's broken.
Fran: Yes, I know. I like it that way. Makes me look the way I feel.
Some people take, some people get took. And they know they're getting took and there's nothing they can do about it.
Sheldrake: But this is the key to the executive washroom.
Bud: That's right, Mr. Sheldrake. I won't be needing it, because I'm all washed up around here.
Y'know, I used to live like Robinson Crusoe. I mean shipwrecked among 8 million people. And then one day I saw a footprint in the sand and there you were.
Sheldrake: …right away, they think you're gonna divorce your wife. Now I ask you - is that fair?
Bud: No, sir, it's very unfair, especially to your wife.
Sorry, Mr. Sheldrake, I'm full up. You'll have to take the next elevator.
Quotes via Wikiquote
Fun facts
- Jack Lemmon's character strains spaghetti through a tennis racket in one of only two scenes where Billy Wilder, who usually demanded exact adherence to the script, let Lemmon improvise.Wikipedia · Production
- Art director Alexandre Trauner used forced perspective for the vast insurance office, filling the back rows with successively smaller desks and people, ending with children.Wikipedia · Production
- Fred MacMurray said that after the film came out, women berated him in the street for making a 'dirty filthy movie,' and one hit him with her purse.Wikipedia · Reception
- The story was partly inspired by a Hollywood scandal in which producer Walter Wanger shot agent Jennings Lang, who had used a low-level employee's apartment for trysts with Wanger's wife Joan Bennett.Wikipedia · Production
- Billy Wilder first conceived the idea from Brief Encounter in the 1940s, but couldn't make a comedy about adultery under the Hays Code at the time.Wikipedia · Production
- During a scene where Jack Lemmon was meant to mime being punched, he was accidentally knocked down for real, and Wilder kept the shot in the film.Wikipedia · Production
- Kevin Spacey dedicated his American Beauty Oscar to Jack Lemmon's performance in The Apartment, a film Sam Mendes watched as inspiration before shooting.Wikipedia · Awards and nominations
- Fred MacMurray got the role of Sheldrake only because Wilder's original choice, Paul Douglas, died unexpectedly.Wikipedia · Production
- Since The Apartment, only two black-and-white films have won Best Picture: Schindler's List and The Artist.Wikipedia · Awards and nominations
- The film became the 1968 Broadway musical Promises, Promises by Burt Bacharach, Hal David and Neil Simon.Wikipedia · Stage adaptation