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Features: DVD, Widescreen, Aspect Ratio 2.35:1, Theatrical Version, Trailers
Winner of five 1960 Academy Awards including Best Picture, The Apartment is legendary writer/director Billy Wilder at his scathing, satirical best, and "one of the finest comedies Hollywood has turned out" (Newsweek). C.C. "Bud" Baxter (Jack Lemmon) knows the way to success in business...it's through the door of his apartment! By providing a perfect hideaway for philandering bosses, the ambitious young employee reaps a series of undeserved promotions. But when Bud lends the key to big boss J.D. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray), he not only advances his career, but his own love life as well. For Sheldrake's mistress is the lovely Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), elevator girl and angel of Bud's dreams. Convinced that he is the only man for Fran, Bud must make the most important executice decision of his career: lose the girl...or his job.
"Gleeful! Ingenious! A smashing good comedy!" The New York Times
"This is an extraordinarily well-told story that has its audience right where it wants them every step of the way. " At-A-Glance Film Reviews
"...[one of] the finest comedies Hollywood has turned out..." Newsweek
Editor's Note
Billy Wilder's THE APARTMENT blends his customary harsh cynicism with a humane streak that appears only fleetingly in his films. It stars Jack Lemmon as C.C. Baxter, an office clerk who curries favor with the executives in his office by giving them the key to his small apartment for the odd afternoon dalliance. Among them his is his callous boss, J.D. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray), who Baxter eventually learns is using his place to sleep with Miss Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), the sweet elevator operator the clerk has loved from afar. When Sheldrake coldly dumps the vulnerable young woman, she tries to commit suicide, but is saved by the intervention of Baxter. As the clerk lovingly nurses the young woman back to health he begins to realize, with the help of epigrammatic neighbor Dr. Dreyfuss (Jack Kruschen), exactly how much of a fool he has been. Wilder brilliant depiction of the average American office as a place of brutality, coldness, and alienation conjure up Kafka and Marx. The director seduces the audience into what appears to be an unusually frank sex comedy, but turns the tables in displaying the consequences of the executive's cold indifference. Lemmon and MacLaine both give career performances and MacMurray is memorable as the blandly smiling snake.
| Features | French Subtitles | | French Mono | | Spanish Mono | | Spanish Subtitles | | Widescreen Version Enhanced For 16x9 TVs | | Original Theatrical Trailer | | English Mono |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: MGM |
| Release Date: 9/20/2005 |
| Running Time: 125 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 1960 | | Catalog ID: 1002028 | | UPC: 00027616862686 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English [CC], English, French Dubbed, Spanish Dubbed | | Available Subtitles: French, Spanish | | Video: B&W |
Aspect Ratio | | 2.35:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Oscar (1961) |  | Edward G. Boyle, Alexander Trauner, Winner, Best Art Direction | | Billy Wilder, Winner, Best Director | | Daniel Mandell, Winner, Best Film Editing | | Billy Wilder, Winner, Best Picture | | I.A.L. Diamond, Billy Wilder, Winner, Best Writing, Story And Screenplay Written Directly For The Screen |
| Memorable Quotes| "Miss Kubelik, one doesn't get to be a second administrative assistant around here unless he's a pretty good judge of character, and as far as I'm concerned you're tops. I mean, decency--wise and otherwise--wise."----C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) to Miss Kubelick (Shirley MacLaine) | | "You know, I used to live like Robinson Crusoe----shipwrecked among eight million people. Then one day I saw a footprint in the sand, and there you were."----Baxter to Kubelick |
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| | Professional Reviews | Total Film
"...This seductive, bittersweet 1960 classic was Billy Wilder's last great film....Its layers of satire and genuine tenderness resonate..." -- 5 out of 5 stars 01/01/2000 p.101Entertainment Weekly
"...Fresh....[MacLaine's performance] breaks through Lemmon's brittle good cheer..." -- Rating: A- 10/21/1994 pp.70-2 Ultimate DVD
5 stars out of 5 -- "Lemmon gives on of his best performances ever, in a part written specifically for him..." 05/01/2008 p.89 Chicago Sun-Times
"By the time he made THE APARTMENT, Wilder had become a master at a kind of sardonic, satiric comedy that had sadness at its center." 07/22/2001 Leonard Maltin's Movie And Video Guide 8 of 10
Superb comedy-drama that manages to embrace both sentiment and cynicism. Lemmon attempts to climb corporate ladder by loaning his apartment key to various executives for their extramarital trysts, but it backfires when he falls for his boss's latest girlfriend. Fine performances all around, including MacMurray as an uncharacteristic heel. - Leonard Maltin
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