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The Apartment Reaction! (Patreon)

Published:
2025-07-01 15:48:25
Imported:
2026-06
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The Apartment (1960)

Full Reaction You can either stream the Full reaction below using the embedded video player, otherwise you can click the 'Download' button which will take you directly to Google Drive, enabling you to save the video to your computer instead. You must provide your own footage to watch alongside the full reactions.

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Thomas Corp

Someone who did not get nominated was Fred MacMurray as Sheldrake, and this is some of his strongest work, you would think he would have been nominated. Presumably not helped by the fact that Sheldrake is drastically against Fred’s established type, and the irony is that because this was one of the first things that I saw him in, seeing him in his more usual likeable parts, it was jarring as SHIT. Audiences shared the feeling, jarring-wise. Though it’s not Fred’s first against type character, one of Wilder’s past pictures, Double Indemnity featured that, Sheldrake does stand out as lacking really any likeable characteristics. Fred’s daughter once mentioned the same thing. In fact, there is the great story of a lady came up to Fred when he and his family was at Disneyland. The lady whacked poor Fred with her purse and yelled, “I took my children to see The Apartment! Mr. MacMurray, that was NOT a Disney picture!” and Fred’s the perfect gentleman who just smiled and politely replied, “No, ma’am, it wasn’t.” Makes it rather astonishing that, much though you didn’t like Sheldrake, at all, you, Jess, may have said the kindest words about him that I think I’ve ever heard. In that you assess him as being in the same boat as the other characters, loneliness-wise. Might be accurate. Still don’t like the man, though. Someone you do like is Edie Adams as Miss Olsen, messy queen as you dubbed her. Love how you lived for her fucking Sheldrake’s shit up. And she too is another lonely soul. The whole film. Lonely people just trying to hold on to anything. Expertly shown during the scenes of Baxter and Fran on Christmas Day, and the day following. Jack and Shirley expertly playing the shared loneliness which gets alleviated by the shared company, and the tone of all the scenes is masterful. A good slowness to the progression into romance that Roger Ebert observed, “One of the ways this is an adult picture and not a sitcom is the way it takes Baxter and Miss Kubelik so long to make the romantic leap; they aren’t deluded fools, but jaded realists who have given up on love and are more motivated by paychecks.” The last few years, this is on the tv on Christmas, and I’ve put it on. As Roger Ebert described, “It takes place on the shortest days of the year, when dusk falls swiftly and the streets are cold, when after the office party some people go home to their families and others go home to apartments where they haven’t even bothered to put up a tree. On Christmas Eve, more than any other night of the year, the lonely person feels robbed of something that was there in childhood and isn’t there anymore.” That’s entirely goddamn true, and again, that loneliness that you spoke of is given just the right presentation in this film. And with various mood shifts: the concern of Fran doing more harm to herself, Baxter having the heartwarming moment where he says he’d care if something happened to her, and the pure wholesomeness of the spaghetti scene, adored your reaction to that. Messiness does abound causing plenty of drama, that you got quite into. Leads to one of the other things that slightly dates the film: how Baxter just sort of jumps to his gameplan to woo Fran, and he was planning to move quick. You described it as lots of hopeless romantics with no common sense. As a fellow hopeless romantic, (albeit one who likes to think he has, at the very least, a smidgen of common sense,) yeah, Baxter was just jumping to the conclusion on that one. That part has stood out more in recent years, made more prominent this time around after you made similar comments in your reaction to The Godfather about Michael asking permission to court Apollonia without hearing from her and what she wanted. Sheldrake undermined the effort, though we all love Baxter following doctor’s orders and deciding to be a mensch. Love how he faked you out and then expressed pride in him. Gets me every time, that shot of Fran running to Baxter’s apartment. Shirley never fails to bring tears to the eyes on that one. (Shame the gesture would be wasted on me as on New Year’s, I’m in bed by ten anymore.) Culminates in that perfect ending. Made today, you probably would end with Fran taking time for herself, healing-wise and self-reflection-wise. True. The ending we have, hits a perfect note though. They face the uncertain future with hope, and they have the appropriate last line where Baxter says he loves Fran, he absolutely adores her, and she doesn’t say it back, she instead sweetly says, “Shut up and deal.” and it made the heart swell to bursting, seeing your reaction to that last line. And as you say, this holds up a lot better than one might expect from the era. You speak true on that, and it is delightful to see that you very much enjoyed this. Few other quick notes. The gag of Baxter trying to watch Grand Hotel is one of the bigger laughs of the film, and I loved how you noted how Wilder was on the ball, prescience-wise when it comes to television, advertising-wise. I already listed some of the cast, but really everyone gets the round of applause. Even in smaller parts like Joan Shawlee, who was also in Some Like it Hot, here playing quite differently than Sweet Sue. Get a laugh over her forcing the guy to schedule their trysts around The Untouchables with Bob Stack. (The Untouchables is a pretty good show.) And there’s the hilarity of Hal Smith playing the drunk Santa BEFORE he first appeared as Otis, which makes it funnier. And I got a good laugh over your comment about the carnations. Afraid I have no answer to your frustrations about the epidemic, carnation-wise. And I guess that’s about all I have, comment-wise. Thank you for just such a lovely reaction, Jess.

Ryan

First, a moment of anger for 1960 rent and taxi prices: THE FUCK?!?!? Okay, now that's done and we can get to the movie. You're right that the movie was pretty scandalous at the time, with critics sharply divided on it and some calling it one of the filthiest movies they'd ever seen (I can only assume they missed the pre-Code period). Billy Wilder had actually first come up with the idea back in the '40s but couldn't get anyone to touch it until this time when the Hays Code had started to really lose its power, thanks largely to Wilder himself with the previous year's Some Like It Hot demonstrating there was so much you could do with innuendo that there was simply no point to it anymore. Which paid off as he immediately wanted to work with Jack Lemmon again, and he provides the perfect lead for this story where you have to keep sympathizing with him despite him doing some pretty shady things and want him to become a better person. Wilder also let him improvise quite a bit, with several long takes where he has a bunch of props to work with, and he nails every one. Wilder's ethos was that the director's most important job was just to stay out of the actors' way, but that didn't stop him from regularly producing some very striking images, aided by his belief that movies worked best in black and white which he'd stick to through 1966's The Fortune Cookie. And this is actually the last black and white Best Picture except for two and a half that used it specifically to evoke a past time period (Schindler's List, The Artist, and half of Oppenheimer). He was also one of the few directors of the day to be equally skilled in both comedy and drama rather than getting pigeonholed into one, and here he just smashes them together, creating almost a Wes Anderson effect where the overt comedy of the early scenes takes you totally off guard for how dark it eventually gets. Shirley MacLaine makes the second of her three BP appearances, thankfully being free of brownface this time (you want to talk about a movie that's REALLY aged badly), and she creates the ideal presence to signal the film's tonal shift as we can see all over her face how badly she's affected by Sheldrake's neglect (I guess he quit the movie business after that whole thing with Norma Desmond). And Baxter's looking up her information does come off as badly dated now, a shame since the rest of the movie has aged spectacularly. For context, about this same time Mel Brooks was starting to date Anne Bancroft, and by his own account did basically this same thing, which she called out as stalking when he told her about it on that first date. I'm also kind of fascinated that there was evidently a time when pushing elevator buttons was considered such a complicated thing that there had to be an entire dedicated job for it. It must have been even more shocking back then when she goes so far as attempting suicide, and the movie would get broken here if we don't believe she would have actually been driven that far, but Shirley makes sure we buy it. Hey, things could always be worse, your daughter could decide of her own free will to marry a man named Flap. I'm also very impressed you immediately caught that she was going out with Sheldrake, and the role the mirror would play, which were both surprises to me on first watch. But as the old saying goes, a movie's only as strong as its villain, and we're quite spoiled for choice here with all these heartless fat cats who you just imagine are getting this frustrated because they're impatient for the next squid game. And at the top of the heap is Fred MacMurray, actually a hasty replacement when Wilder's preferred choice Paul Douglas had a fatal heart attack, but his playing against type from his usual family friendly roles adds so much and makes him all the more chilling as someone who honestly sees nothing wrong with what he's doing and thinks of himself as a perfectly nice guy. I've never seen My Three Sons, but if it's anything like this I can see why it got Rod and Todd riled up before bedtime. And he was bombarded with complaints from people who took their kids to see the movie after assuming it must be okay for them if he was in it; I'd say they apparently forgot about his last time working with Wilder in Double Indemnity, but in those days when you could only see a movie again if it happened to be on TV, it really would have been 16 years since then so I can cut them some slack. And I used to say the movie's one flaw is that I couldn't believe Fran got so stuck on such an obvious asshole, but learning the truth about Neil Gaiman after I'd spent months defending him against the accusations permanently cured me of that, and just makes me hate Sheldrake all the more. If any Wilder character actually deserved to sit on a pair of wine glasses... I can't leave off my new absolute favorite thing about the movie after I recently finished watching every Best Picture winner. My choice for the absolute worst of the bunch is 1958's Gigi, a horribly sexist mess that you'll inevitably get a bunch of condescending "Oh, it was just a different time" if you try to bring it up. To which I now just shoot back that apparently they figured out pretty fast it's wrong to brag about driving a woman to suicide, because just two years later The Apartment got the top prize by portraying it exactly as it should be. Incidentally, looking through the rest of the list I can't think of anything that's egregiously offensive by today's standards. Wilder then came up with the perfect way to end the movie. We get all the catharsis of Baxter sticking up for himself and deciding to be a mensch, to which I just wish he'd also told Sheldrake he'd be taking care of Fran now. "You know why you couldn't crack this one? Because the person you were looking for was too close. Right across the desk from you." But we're still left with him now being jobless and soon to be homeless, with Fran likely not to last too much longer at the job either. But in this single moment, it's enough for them to just be able to play cards together. Well, nobody's perfect.

Ryan
>>178998201

This oddly isn't the last Best Picture to have a suicide fakeout near the end. I won't mention what the other one is for possible spoilers, but it's nowhere near as good as this one. Pretty cosmic that the movie directly references two previous Best Pictures in Grand Hotel and Wilder's own The Lost Weekend. The only time that's happened I can think of.

Thomas Corp
>>179012021

Lot like in Die Hard how they have the gas prices at seventy-four cents a gallon. The way you read about critical responses to stuff, it does feel like everybody just collectively forgot about pre-code. I know Wilder was inspired by Brief Encounter. Some Like it Hot being the first major stone thrown that began the death of the code, which got finished off by Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. You just love the first collaborations with Wilder and Jack. I recall how you mentioned about Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters giving an essential inherent likeability to a guy who it’s sometimes challenging to follow along with. When you said that, this sprang to mind as being along similar lines of Jack was just one of the most likable stars, and he keeps Baxter sympathetic, even with the shadier elements of his character, and you root for him to be a mensch. Love his prop work with the tennis racket. As mentioned, I’ve caught this on the tv for the past few Christmases, so it was already relatively fresh in my mind, and even then, watching it again for the reaction, you still get blown away by Wilder’s visuals. You wish more films today would be in black-and-white. The skill in comedy and drama both, and how he just pushes them together the ways that he would, is one of the bigger reasons why Wilder is my favorite director. He made one hell of a shift from more humorous material to it getting dark real fast in this one. Yeah, Shirley does have the three best picture appearances, and two of those are really damn good films. (The first one being the same year where I have the Kubrick picture as my favorite. Following year too, though The Bridge on the River Kwai is really damn good.) Shirley does amazing work in this film, especially in just the facial acting that you highlight. Probably true about that business with Norma, on top of the regret of turning down Gone with the Wind for the reason that nobody wants to see a Civil War picture. There are the few spots where you remember this takes place when it does. The looking up the card standing out probably the most. Heard about that with Mel doing it with Anne. Found it interesting how Jess likened it to cyberstalking today and that people still do it. Usually, they don’t casually admit to it, and women don’t find it cute. Nor do men, in my experience. Something to think about how shocking Fran’s attempted suicide was to audiences back then. Gets me choked up when the scenes happen. The worse fate is indeed the Flap of it all, which my mom has said that only within recent years has Jeff managed to somewhat escape the shadow of Flap, and to my dad’s dying day, he saw Jeff, and he saw Flap. Favorite of that year, by the way, is Return of the Jedi, though I do have Local Hero and The Dresser very closely behind Jedi. Fran seeing Sheldrake was a surprise on the first viewing. Share the reaction Jess had with the mirror, and the payoff with that still got me. We are spoiled for choice in this film, villain-wise. Those fat cats would be the types that would enjoy squid games. At least you know that Mr. Dobisch ends up having to contend with the karma that is being stuck teaching Spicoli. Paul Douglas would have been very interesting as Sheldrake. My mom likes him a lot. Fred is really too perfect as Sheldrake, especially for how against type he is. I have seen My Three Sons, maybe not the whole show, but I’ve seen it. Fred carries similar energy there as he does here, and it is unsettling. I mentioned the one story about the one lady confronting Fred about this. Films being harder to look up information about them back then compared to now, combined with the sixteen years between this and Double Indemnity, you do allow some leeway with people’s responses. That which you say was what you thought was the one flaw of the film. Sadly, I can’t say that I have ever felt the same way. The situation is a depressingly familiar one and the tale has repeated many times. Now you say that the revelations about Gaiman have you looking at it in the different way, yeah, I can see how that’d make you hate Sheldrake more. He and Gaiman could do with the run in with the wine glasses, and without the reprieve that is the hammock. Few gaps on my best picture viewing, for example, Anora and the first two of this decade being the most recent that I’ve yet to see. I concur about picking Gigi as being the worst. I still don’t get how that one won. They learned the lesson quick about it being wrong to brag about driving a woman to suicide. Love it how Baxter tries to parrot Sheldrake and the other guys to cover for what happened, and he rightfully gets called out on it. Few spots of this are iffy for today, Jess highlighted them, the big one with looking up the card. But otherwise, yeah, this film ages absurdly well for being as old as it is. Nothing egregiously offensive, as you say. You do wish that Baxter had told Sheldrake that although he thinks he’s smarter than other guys, in actuality, “You’re not smarter, Sheldrake... you’re just a little taller.” or the line that you highlight which is part of another occasion where Wilder has such perfect last lines of the film. I saw the reference, and the instinct to quote Fred as Walter by saying, “I love you too” was strong. True that if you think about it too much, Baxter and Fran’s prospects aren’t particularly good, but that’s something they can worry about after they have that perfect ending scene. And hopefully one day they’ll get the sweet end of the lollipop. (Praying to God that film concludes the fifties series, assuming Jess has not seen it.)