It was a presidential election year. A labor and pioneering civil rights supporter from Minnesota; a Texas pol backed by the firm that later became Halliburton; a handsome, womanizing Massachusetts senator with hidden health problems; a reptilian governor of New York; and a California man uncomfortable in his own skin. What a choice!
German director Billy Wilder had three huge comedies as the Fifties ended and the Sixties began: “Some Like It Hot” (1959), wonderfully innocent; “The Apartment” (1960), a pitch black masterpiece; and “1-2-3” (1961), which topped out James Cagney’s career.
Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine were outstanding in “The Apartment” as star-crossed lovers, but it was Fred MacMurray who walked off with the film, playing a real SOB. MacMurray was at his best playing hard, unsympathetic roles. The movie is an intense emotional trip.
The music for the film was written by Charles Williams, a Brit who had been a major player in the English film scene since the end of World War II. This was his biggest success since his music for a dream sequence in the 1947 British weeper “While I Live,” which has become known over the years as “The Dream of Olwen.”
