The Apartment

The Apartment (1960)

Timing: 2:5 (125 min)

8.187/10
2613

8.009/10
29119

8.3/10
218000

All about film

Video 21

Photo 158

Actors and characters

Release date

1960-06-21

Country

United States

Production

United Artists, The Mirisch Company

Genre

Comedy, Drama, Romance

Budget

$3 000 000

Revenue

$25 000 000

Website

Director

Billy Wilder

Actors

Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray, Ray Walston, Jack Kruschen, David Lewis, Hope Holiday, Joan Shawlee, Naomi Stevens, Johnny Seven
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Billy Wilder, I. A. L. Diamond

Producer

Billy Wilder

Operator

Joseph LaShelle

Composer

Adolph Deutsch

Artist

Audition

Editing

Daniel Mandell
All team (27)

• Marilyn Monroe wanted to star in the film, but did not get the role.
• To show a multitude of people working in a huge insurance company office, the following trick was devised: adult actors sat closest to the camera at desks, further away were children in adult costumes at specially made small tables, and even further away sat cardboard figures controlled by pulling on threads attached to them. This created the effect of a huge space filled with working people.
• The idea for this film originally came to Billy Wilder (1906-2002) after watching David Lean's (1908-1991) drama 'Brief Encounter' (1945), when he wondered about a man who rents out his apartment for such extramarital affairs. Shirley MacLaine, who played the role of Fran, was given only the first 40 pages of the script so that she would not know the ending in advance. The actress herself thought at the time that the script was not yet finished.
• Film critics in the socialist countries called this film an indictment of the American system and said that such a thing was only possible in a capitalist city like New York. At a dinner in honor of the film in East Berlin, Wilder stated that this story 'could happen anywhere – in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Rome, Paris, London' and could not happen only in Moscow. The East Germans erupted in applause. When the applause subsided, Wilder continued and said that it could not happen in Moscow because no resident there had their own apartment. This statement was met with complete silence.
• Jack Lemmon later recounted that he learned a lot about filmmaking specifically from Billy Wilder – in particular, the use of nuances that audiences remember long after they’ve forgotten the other details of the film. One such nuance is the apartment key. According to the actor, many years after the film's release, people would approach him saying, “Jack, lend me the keys.”
• Billy Wilder and screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond (1920-1988) did not allow for any deviations from the script whatsoever. Shirley MacLaine simply irritated them by constantly departing from it. One scene in the elevator had to be shot five times solely because she kept forgetting to say one word.
• The film’s final, now-classic line was conceived at the last moment, right on the set.
• The film's idea was partially based on a Hollywood scandal when, in 1951, producer Walter Wanger (1894-1968) shot Jennings Lang (1915-1996) over an affair with his wife, actress Joan Bennett (1910-1990). During his affair with Bennett, Lang used the apartment of one of his subordinates. Another plot element was also taken from life: a friend of I.A.L. Diamond once had a falling out with a girlfriend, and then one day returned home to find her had committed suicide in his bed.