There's a feel and quality to The Apartment. I can't quite explain. I love the intro. The relationship between time, space and individual is especially captivating. There's something to the architecture too. Maybe it's Wilder's technique. And then there's the story; the social and corporate commentary. Cool stuff.
The acting of course is excellent with Shirley McLaine, Jack Lemmon and Fred MacMurray - easily one of the most under rated actors in Hollywood history.
Here are the opening two scenes:
One of my favorites also. Probably because of the adolescent crush I had for Shirley MacLaine (a love which still smolders in the deepest reaches of my heart... or psyche). You are possibly right about MacMurray but I think Double Indemnity was his finest.
ReplyDeleteA delightful movie set in a modern city in a modern world that was seemingly going to exist forever. The offices, the work, the jobs, the life was there to stay.
ReplyDeleteThe opening certainly gives that impression. They were like cattle in an abyss of desks.
ReplyDeleteDepressing to people like me who wouldn't survive a day in such conditions. I worked in customer service for a bank servicing the country on the phones with four people around me and I wanted to slit my wrists.
This 9 to 5 thing just isn't for me.
Sorry for the run on sentence.
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