{"id":2201,"date":"2006-06-20T19:15:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-20T19:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/06\/mark-steyn-commemorates-billy-wilder\/"},"modified":"2006-06-20T19:15:00","modified_gmt":"2006-06-20T19:15:00","slug":"mark-steyn-commemorates-billy-wilder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/06\/mark-steyn-commemorates-billy-wilder.html","title":{"rendered":"Mark Steyn commemorates Billy Wilder"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>I\u2019ve seen a few Billy Wilder<\/a> movies in my time \u2014 Double Indemnity<\/a><\/i> (1944), Sunset Boulevard<\/a><\/i> (1950), Some Like It Hot<\/a><\/i> (1959), one or two others \u2014 but not nearly enough. Now Mark Steyn has written an article<\/a> commemorating the 100th anniversary of Wilder\u2019s birth. A few excerpts:<\/span><\/p>\n

In Vienna, he was a journalist who turned to screenwriting in the flourishing German film industry. Arriving in America, he wrote, with Charles Brackett, for Lubitsch (Ninotchka<\/i>) and then began directing after tiring of their scripts getting screwed by studio hacks. He was always a writer first, an ideas man who came up with the premise for The Apartment<\/i> after seeing Brief Encounter<\/i> and finding himself wondering about the fellow who lends his flat to Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard. \u201cThe interesting character is the friend,\u201d he said, \u201cwho returns to his home and finds the bed still warm; he who has no mistress.\u201d . . .<\/p>\n

For a script man, Wilder was also very shrewd about actors. To take just one example, compare Jack Lemmon in a Wilder movie with Jack Lemmon in just about anything else. Billy Wilder managed to play off that endearingly goofy earnestness of Lemmon in a way no other director could: without him, it decayed into pretentiousness and portentousness \u2014 and, Hollywood being Hollywood, with the wretched Save The Tiger<\/i>, they gave him an Oscar for it. . . .<\/p>\n

Their best picture together was The Apartment<\/i> (1960), which scraped into the American Film Institute\u2019s all-time Hot 100 at Number 93, but is, to my mind, vastly superior to Wilder\u2019s more celebrated Some Like It Hot<\/i> and Sunset Boulevard<\/i>. It\u2019s a sad but true urban Christmas fable: there\u2019s no snow, just flu all month long; the office-party booze makes everyone mean and sour; the only sighting of le P\u00e8re Noel is an aggressive off-duty department-store Santa chugging it down at a midtown bar; and the Christmas Eve climax is an attempted suicide. I hasten to add I\u2019m not one of those seasonal cynics like so many of my cheerless colleagues in the British media: \u201cHo, ho, bloody ho,\u201d as the Daily Telegraph<\/i> rock critic began his Xmas round-up a couple of years ago. But that\u2019s what I love about The Apartment<\/i>: its Wilderian cynicism is redeemed by one of the sweetest Christmas Day scenes in any movie. In his review of Rodgers and Hart\u2019s amoral Pal Joey<\/i>, Brooks Atkinson wrote: \u201cHow can you draw sweet water from a foul well?\u201d Well, The Apartment<\/i> pulls it off, wonderfully. . . .<\/p>\n

I once asked Jack Lemmon whether even the best comedies today compared with Wilder. He was circumspect because he didn\u2019t want to sound like Mister Squaresville, but he made a good point. \u201cThere are fewer of what I\u2019d call \u2018book comedies\u2019 now \u2013 with a first, second and third act through which the characters grow. Yes, there\u2019s often a story today, but you could interchange the scenes. They\u2019re like sketches: they\u2019ve each got their own punch, then ka-boom, on to the next.\u201d What he liked about Wilder was his ability to combine comedy and drama. \u201cIt\u2019s hard enough to write a good drama,\u201d mused Lemmon of his old friend, \u201cit\u2019s much harder to write a good comedy, and it\u2019s hardest of all to write a drama with comedy. Which is what life is.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To my shame, The Apartment<\/a><\/i> is one of the Wilder films I have never seen. I recently started watching certain old musicals<\/a> based on Steyn\u2019s write-ups; looks like I\u2019ll have to give this a look, too.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve seen a few Billy Wilder movies in my time \u2014 Double Indemnity (1944), Sunset Boulevard (1950), Some Like It Hot (1959), one or two others \u2014 but not nearly enough. Now Mark Steyn has written an article commemorating the 100th anniversary of Wilder\u2019s birth. A few excerpts: In Vienna, he was a journalist who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nMark Steyn commemorates Billy Wilder<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I've seen a few Billy Wilder movies in my time -- Double Indemnity (1944), Sunset Boulevard (1950), Some Like It Hot (1959), one or two others -- but not\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/06\/mark-steyn-commemorates-billy-wilder.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mark Steyn commemorates Billy Wilder\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I've seen a few Billy Wilder movies in my time -- Double Indemnity (1944), Sunset Boulevard (1950), Some Like It Hot (1959), one or two others -- but not\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2006\/06\/mark-steyn-commemorates-billy-wilder.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FilmChat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-06-20T19:15:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/7991\/933\/400\/apartmentUK.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter T. 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