The Apartment (1960)

Essential Viewing

USA

Feature Film

Director: Billy Wilder

Writers: I.A.L. Diamond, Billy Wilder

Cinematographer: Joseph LaShelle

Composer: Adolph Deutsch

Cast: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray, Ray Walston, Jack Kruschen, David Lewis, Hope Holiday, Joan Shawlee, Naomi Stevens

With a razor-sharp, instantly-quotable script, incredibly expressive mise en scène, and an outstanding pair of performances from Lemmon and MacLaine, Wilder’s comedy-drama affectingly and hilariously follows the plight of an office nebbish who works his way up through the company by lending out his apartment to a number of adulterous middle-managers for their various clandestine affairs, but comes unstuck when the object of his affections, a delightful lift operator, becomes a regular visitor to his eponymous abode. Iain.Stott