The Apartment (1960)
 Winner
of five Academy Awards including Best Picture, The Apartment is
legendary writer/director Billy Wilder at his scathing, satirical
best.
Insurance Clerk Bud Baxter (Lemmon) has found the ideal way to
gain the attention and approval of his bosses is to allow them to
use his apartment as a perfect hideaway for their extramarital
trysts.
The ambitious young employee subsequently reaps a series of
undeserved promotions, but when he lends the key to big boss J.D.
Sheldrake (MacMurray), he not only advances his career, but his
own love life as well.
For Sheldrake's mistress is the lovely Fran Kubelik (MacLaine),
elevator girl and angel of Bud's dreams.
Convinced that he is the only man for Fran, Bud must make the
most important executive decision of his career - lose the girl or
his job.
A controversial comedy when it was made, The Apartment
is also brightly funny and deliciously cynical. Partly because it
relies on a suicide attempt to make its point about how human
beings should be treated, it's also poignant.
Quite probably the template for all modern Hollywood romantic
comedies.
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