The Apartment
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DVD details
Actor: Dorothy Abbott, Edie Adams, Fred MacMurray, Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaineBrand: LEMMON,JACK
Cinematographer: Joseph La Shelle
Composer: Adolph Deutsch
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language); French (Original Language); Spanish (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 125 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-06-19
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of The Apartment
DVD Review: Featuring a wonderful performance by Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. A timeless classic that is witty, fun and awesome!
Summary: 5 Stars
The 1960 comedy/drama written and directed by Billy Wilder ("Sunset Blvd.", "Sabrina", "Some Like It Hot", "Kiss Me Stupid") and co-written with I.A.L. Diamond ("Some Like It Hot", "Kiss Me, Stupid", "The Fortune Cookie") was an incredible success in the box office grossing $25 million and nominated for ten Academy Awards and winning five including "Best Picture". In fact, "The Apartment" was the last black and white to win an Academy Award for Best Picture.
The film received many awards from BAFTA and the Golden Globes and is often featured in various cinema magazines in polls for "Greatest Films". The film has been part of American Film Institute's top 100 polls and also was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
But the film had its fair share of criticism. Because of the film's nature of infidelity and adultery, where films at the time were typically promoted as wholesome entertainment, the film although regarded as a classic and received positive reviews also received its fair share of detractors because of the film's content.
"The Apartment" was released on DVD back in 2001. followed by a Collector's Edition in 2008. It was then released as part of "The Billy Wilder DVD Collection" which contains nine DVD's back in 2003 and then another Billy Wilder DVD Film Collection featuring four DVD's in 2008. The version of "The Apartment" that I am reviewing is the version that came with the 2003 DVD box set and is the same release that came out in 2001.
VIDEO & AUDIO:
"The Apartment" is featured in 16:9 Widescreen (2:35:1 aspect ratio). For the most part, the film looks very good on DVD. I am told that the 2008 "Collector's Edition" release is much better and I can only hope that Fox releases a Blu-ray version of the film in 1080p High Definition. But for this release, there are dust particles that can be seen throughout the film. It's not distracting unless you are focusing on it but for the most part, the film looks very good for a film 50-years-old.
As for the audio, the film is presented in English, French and Spanish Mono. I know that the 2008 DVD release features both a 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound and stereo version of the film. But you do get the original monaural soundtrack and for those with newer home theater receivers, can definitely enjoy this film with setting the audio to stereo on all channels for a more immersive soundtrack if needed.
Subtitles are in French and Spanish. English is only via closed caption.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
This version of "The Apartment" on DVD only comes with the original theatrical trailer.
JUDGMENT CALL:
"The Apartment" is a fantastic film!
"The Apartment" is well-written, acting is fantastic and for the most part, editing and pacing is well-done. There is nothing I can fault about the film. At first, I felt that a romantic comedy film being over 2 hrs. long could be a bit too much but in the sake of this film, each and every minute was well-utilized. Jack Lemmon gave a commanding performance and Shirley MacLaine was fantastic as well. But shocking was Fred MacMurray's adulterous role as the actor who has appeared in many kindhearted, fatherly roles was playing such a character.
Billy Wilder does an incredible job by working with the talent, especially with Jack Lemmon when it came to the script but also the small improvisation details, from him having a cold, gags such as shooting his nose drop across the office, making spaghetti and singing. It's also important to note that the scene where Lemmon was hit in the film, he was hit in real life and Wilder chose to use the scene.
Because of its content dealing with adultery, also suicide and the fact the film stars Fred MacMurray, I could imagine how controversial this film was back in 1960. Especially reading how MacMurray even received an older woman hitting him with her purse when she saw him.
Although a classic film, for me wanting to see "The Apartment" came from watching the UK film "Brief Encounter" directed by David Lean. I've read that in that film which featured one of the main characters wanting to use his friend's apartment gave Billy Wilder the idea for the film but also a real life Hollywood scandal involving agent Jennings Lang and producer Walter Wanger (husband of actress Joan Bennett) in which the affair took place in an employee's apartment and a suicide attempt came from an actual incident involving a friend of writer I.A.L. Diamond.
"The Apartment" has instantly become one of my top films that I have seen in my lifetime. A good balance of comedy but also drama that takes on topics that probably made people uneasy during that time.
I definitely would recommend the 2008 Collector's Edition of "The Apartment" mainly because its a new transfer and the DVD contains many special features. But it's so easy to be a fan of Billy Wilder's work that you probably will want to purchase his box sets. If you can find the nine DVD box set for cheap (I paid $29 which is remarkably cheap for the DVD set over the Christmas holiday week), then definitely get that version. Otherwise, there is a four DVD box set available as well and since it was released in 2008, includes the collector's edition of "The Apartment".
"The Apartment" is highly recommended!
Description of The Apartment
Winner* of five 1960 Academy AwardsÂ(r), 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 makethe most important executive decision of his career: lose the girl...or his job. *1960: Director, Story and Screenplay, Editing, Art Direction (B&W)Romance at its most anti-romantic--that is the Billy Wilder stamp of genius, and this Best Picture Academy Award winner from 1960 is no exception. Set in a decidedly unsavory world of corporate climbing and philandering, the great filmmaker's trenchant, witty satire-melodrama takes the office politics of a corporation and plays them out in the apartment of lonely clerk C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon). By lending out his digs to the higher-ups for nightly extramarital flings with their secretaries, Baxter has managed to ascend the business ladder faster than even he imagined. The story turns even uglier, though, when Baxter's crush on the building's melancholy elevator operator (Shirley MacLaine) runs up against her long-standing affair with the big boss (a superbly smarmy Fred MacMurray). The situation comes to a head when she tries to commit suicide in Baxter's apartment. Not the happiest or cleanest of scenarios, and one that earned the famously caustic and cynically humored Wilder his share of outraged responses, but looking at it now, it is a funny, startlingly clear-eyed vision of urban emptiness and is unfailingly understanding of the crazy decisions our hearts sometimes make. Lemmon and MacLaine are ideally matched, and while everyone cites Wilder's Some Like It Hot closing line "Nobody's perfect" as his best, MacLaine's no-nonsense final words--"Shut up and deal"--are every bit as memorable. Wilder won three Oscars for The Apartment, for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay (cowritten with longtime collaborator I.A.L. Diamond). --Robert Abele
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