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The Apartment (1960)

Director: Billy Wilder

Time Out rating

Average user rating

4 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Re-teaming Jack Lemmon, scriptwriter Iz Diamond and director Billy Wilder the year after ‘Some Like it Hot’, this multi-Oscar-winning comedy is sharper in tone as it traces the compromises of a New York insurance drone who uses his brownstone apartment as promotional capital by pimping it out, as it were, for his married bosses’ illicit affairs.

This quintessential New York movie – with its exquisite design by Alexander Trauner and shimmering black-and-white photography – presented something of a breakthrough in its presentation of the ‘sex-war’ in the age of ‘the organisation man’, with its sour and cynical view of the immoralism, self-deception, loneliness and cruelty involved in ‘romantic’ liaisons.

Directed by Wilder with a professional fluidity, attention to detail and emotional reticence that belie its inherent darkness and melodramatic core, it’s lifted considerably by the performances: the psychosomatic ticks and tropes of Lemmon as the poor ‘nebbish’ balanced by the pathos of Shirley MacLaine as the abused ‘lift girl’.

Author: Wally Hammond

Time Out London Issue 1977, July 10 -16, 2008

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User reviews of this film

Michael James said...

Posted on Jul 13 2008 12:18 Hammond, like so many of his colleagues at 'Time Out' put more emphasis on appearing cool rather than giving real thought to any art form. There's something worryingly fascist about them at London's premier magazine. But they're delusion is that they are the voice of London. The sales of the magazine speak for them as do the viewing figures for Eastenders speak for tv. 'The Apartment' is not worthy of only 3 stars. This it not only my opinion, but the opinion of most (prob incl 'The Wally') cinema goers who have any knowledge of film history.

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Keith said...

Posted on Jul 11 2008 03:12 Perfection! The legendary Wilder at the zenith of his considerable powers. A faultless blend of romance, humour and pathos, sumpremely written, directed and acted from start to finish. An unadulterated joy!

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tupaq felber said...

Posted on Jul 10 2008 15:17 Giving every film 3 stars may indeed make your publication look cooly apathetic, but when you start giving it to classics too it just begins to seem you don't know what you're talking about.

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Julian said...

Posted on Jul 09 2008 20:42 How can your so-called reviewer, Wally Hammond, give only three stars to one of the greatest films ever made -- is he having a laugh or what, or just trying to be controversial? Methinks his brain has been permanently pickled due to over exposure to too many Michael Bay blockbuster extravaganzas. Can someone at Time Out have a quiet word in his shell-like, and put the boy straight? And what's all this dated about? The only movies that age really badly as far as I'm concerned are ones dominated by naff CGI (c'mon, can anyone really say with a straight face that they now consider Titanic to be a good film?).

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