The Apartment

IMDb RATING

8.3/10

201K

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Farce Holiday Comedy Holiday Romance Romantic Comedy Comedy Drama Holiday Romance

A Manhattan insurance clerk tries to rise in his company by letting its executives use his apartment for trysts, but office politics and his own romantic hopes complicate matters.A Manhattan insurance clerk tries to rise in his company by letting its executives use his apartment for trysts, but office politics and his own romantic hopes complicate matters.A Manhattan insurance clerk tries to rise in his company by letting its executives use his apartment for trysts, but office politics and his own romantic hopes complicate matters.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

8.3/10

201K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

3,111

146

See production info at IMDbPro

Top rated movie #100

Won 5 Oscars
- 25 wins & 8 nominations total

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Trivia
To create the effect of a vast sea of faces laboring grimly and impersonally at their desks in the huge insurance company office, designers Alexandre Trauner and Edward G. Boyle devised an interesting technique. Full-sized actors sat at the desks in the front and children dressed in suits were used at tiny desks toward the rear, followed by even smaller desks with cut-out figures operated by wires. It gave the effect of a much larger space than could have been achieved in the limited studio space.

Goofs
The layout of Baxter's apartment makes no sense, especially in relation to Dr. Dreyfus's apartment. Dreyfus lives next to Baxter, which means their walls should be adjoining the full length of both flats. However, from inside Baxter's living room, one can see windows in both his kitchen and bedroom facing directly where the Dreyfus apartment should be (and there would likely be a window in the bathroom between the kitchen and bedroom). Dreyfus's apartment would have to veer immediately off to the extreme right when one enters it and be no more than a couple of inches wide in order to allow the kind of set-up seen in Baxter's apartment. This is clearly unrealistic, if not downright impossible.

Quotes
C.C. Baxter: The mirror... it's broken.
Fran Kubelik: Yes, I know. I like it that way. Makes me look the way I feel.

Alternate versions
The 1997 VHS contained the short version of United Artists' 1987 variant.

Connections
Featured in Aquarius: Shirley Maclaine/East 100th St./Police 5/Brighton Breezy (1971)

Soundtracks
Adeste Fideles (O Come All Ye Faithful)
(1782) (uncredited)
Music by John Francis Wade
English lyrics by Frederick Oakeley (1852)

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Review

Featured review

10/10

A rare gem, this is a blessedly adult comedy with great performances, great writing and the kind of depth hardly ever seen in the more vapid, formulaic romantic comedies of today.

Written by the great filmmaker Billy Wilder, this is a serious, sardonic comedy for people who've known what's its like to feel the pressure of compromising your principles or your self- respect for the sake of getting ahead in life. And there are very few over the age of consent who haven't had to at one time or another. This isn't the laugh out loud comedy of Jim Carrey or the Farrelly brothers, but a subtle, nuanced comedy about two people who have both been jaded in love and yet continue to hope again and again that it will someday work out for them -- mainly because despite the unlikeable things they do, they are both basically decent, nice people. Flawed and even weak at times, but good people. This is a movie that doesn't just make it you laugh, it makes you think. A rare find indeed.