Anniversary of The Apartment

June 15, 1960 in New York (USA) the premiere of the film "The Apartment" took place. Director Billy Wilder.

The idea of the film to Billy Wilder, by his own admission, was inspired by David Lean's film "Brief Encounter" (1945). After watching Lean's film, Billy Wilder wondered about the fate of a character who was not seen in this film — a man who rents out his apartment for an extramarital date. In addition to the film "Brief Encounter", some plot moves to Billy Wilder and his co-author of the script I.A.L. Diamond was prompted, firstly, by a scandal widely known in Hollywood, when an influential agent Jennings Lang, who used his subordinate's apartment for intimate meetings with the wife of producer Walter Vanger - actress Joan Bennett, was shot by a deceived husband. Secondly, the story of one of Diamond's friends, who returned home after breaking up with his girlfriend and found that she committed suicide in his bed.

Marilyn Monroe wanted to play in this film, and bluntly announced this to Billy Wilder during one of the Hollywood parties. But Billy Wilder, who by then had experience working with Monroe in two movies and fed up with her “stardom” and lack of discipline on the set, suggested the main female role in the film Shirley MacLaine. And inserted Monroe-esque character into an episode of a Christmas corporate party.

According to the memoirs of Shirley MacLaine, once in New York she had a chance to meet and chat with the translator of Nikita Khrushchev. According to Shirley MacLaine, during the conversation, the translator said literally the following: "The Premier sends his regards, wishes to be remembered to you, and says he's just seen your new picture, The Apartment, and you've improved.». According to the actress, Khrushchev compared her role in “The Apartment” with the role in the film “Can-Can”, on the set of which the Soviet leader was present during his visit to the United States.

That is, it turns out that the communist leadership was allowed to watch the film production of the “decaying West” almost immediately after its creation. And for ordinary Soviet citizens and citizens of other countries of the socialist camp, the film was released on cinema screens only 10 years after its premiere in the United States. And only because the censors of the socialist countries suddenly realized that the film can be assessed as an indictment of the American system, and that the story described in the film could only happen in a capitalist city like New York. Otherwise, most likely, this film would not be released in the USSR like many other American movies. At the premiere this movie in East Berlin, Billy Wilder said the movie "could happen anywhere, in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Rome, Paris, London." When Wilder said the one place it could not have happened was Moscow, the East Germans broke into thunderous applause and cheers. When the ovation died down, Wilder continued: "The reason this picture could not have taken place in Moscow is that in Moscow nobody has his own apartment." The remark was met with grim silence.

2 months after the premiere, the film was nominated for the main prize - the Golden Lion -of the Venice International Film Festival. However, the jury of the festival, chaired by the French playwright and screenwriter Marcel Achard, gave the palm to the French film "Le passage du Rhin (Tomorrow Is My Turn)" by André Cayatte. The Soviet film director Sergei Bondarchuk was also a member of the jury. Among the nominees for the Golden Lion were, by the way, in addition to "The Apartment", such masterpieces as “Rocco e i suoi fratelli (Rocco and his brothers)” by Luchino Visconti, “Ningen no jôken 人間の條件 (The Human Condition)” by Masaki Kobayashi. However, these film masterpieces were not left without awards. The Visconti film was awarded the Special Jury Prize, the Japanese film - the Pasinetti Prize as the best foreign film, and the leading actress in the Wilder film - Shirley MacLaine - received the Volpi Cup for Best Actress. Shirley MacLaine BTW at the beginning of filming received only the beginning of the script and for a long time, even after the film was released, she was sure that the script continued to be created in parallel with the filming of the movie. However, this did not stop her from receiving three prestigious acting film awards for playing this role.

The next year, 1961, a stream of awards in English-speaking countries hit the film "The Apartment". At first, the film received 3 Golden Globes - as Best Comedy and for two main roles. Then the film received 10 Academy Award nominations, of which 5 won, including the most important ones: as Best Film and for Best Director. And finally, in the UK, the film received 3 BAFTA awards: as Best Film and again for two main roles.

The film was very warmly received by American film critics. Even the usually very picky New York Times movie reviewer Bosley Crowther, who a few years earlier poured mud on Billy Wilder for his "Ace in the Hole" movie, even he didn’t find something to complain about and in his review, published just the day after the premiere in New York, noted that the risky theme of the film was quite capable of reducing the film to a vulgar comedy, or to a boring moralizing, but the talented game of Jack Lemmon and, most importantly, the "ingenious and sure" direction of Billy Wilder ensured the creation "a gleeful, tender and even sentimental film".

The fact that the film remains relevant in ours is also confirmed by the fact that in a 2001 review Roger Ebert, who rated the film to the maximum - 4 out of 4 stars - noted:

“The Apartment” is still tougher and more poignant than the material might have permitted."

Billy Wilder's film "The Apartment" also received very favorable reviews from Russian film critics. Thus, Yevgeny Nefyodov noted:

"At some moments at the screening it is difficult to resist laughter, sometimes sentiments prevail, threatening to bring the sensitive part of the audience to tears. However, the more clearly the conflict is outlined, the more thoroughly you are immersed in thoughts about the truly important things in life. The notorious key to the apartment, where, in spite of Ostap Bender (hero of the "Twelve Chairs" - FG), there is no money and where there are no expensive things at all, nevertheless symbolizes the most valuable thing that an individual should not give up or trade."

Nikolai Kirichenko formulated the same idea a little differently:

"The film will leave you with a pleasant feeling; but don't be surprised if you soon begin to notice that you began to hate humanity a little more."

74% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users around the world gave this film a rating of 8 to 10. Based on this score and the above, rating of Billy Wilder's film "The Apartment" according to the FilmGourmand's version was 9,142, thanks to which it takes 132nd Rank in the Golden Thousand.