Billy Wilder’s 1960 film “The Apartment” is about two desperate people who come to reflect more on what they really want during one particularly melancholic Christmas season. This is surely a gloomy story in many aspects, but the movie did a masterful job of balancing itself between humor and pathos, and that is why it remains as one of Wilder’s best works.

The hero of the story is C.C. “Bud” Baxter (Jack Lemmon), a young employee of some big insurance company in New York City who found a rather sneaky way of getting more chance for promotion. He lives alone at a small apartment somewhere in Manhattan, and that is how he can provide a private place to several male executives of his company eager to have an extramarital affair behind their back. Needless to say, this sometimes causes a trouble for Baxter in one way or another, and there is a little humorous moment between him and one of his neighbors, who mistakes him for a tireless lover and drinker.

Anyway, Baxter’s longtime efforts on indulging those philandering executives finally lead him to a little private meeting with Jeff D. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray, who is as slick and smarmy as he was in Wilder’s another classic film “Double Indemnity” (1944)), the director of the personnel department. It does not take much time for Baxter to realize that Sheldrake also wants to use Baxter’s apartment for his own little extramarital affair, and Baxter cannot possibly say no, mainly because Sheldrake is one of the most powerful figures in the company.

Meanwhile, we come to see that there is another thing Baxter wants besides his promotion. He has been smitten with a young female elevator operator named Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine) for a long time, and it seems that Kubelik also likes him, but it later turns out that there is one big problem unknown to him. She actually had an affair with Sheldrake, and now Sheldrake wants to meet her again, while promising her that he will really leave his wife this time.

Like many other comedy films of Wilder, the movie often generates bitter laughs as observing how much people can willingly bend themselves so low for more benefit and happiness. Although Baxter and Kubelik know what an untrustworthy guy Sheldrake really is, both of them choose to lower themselves in exchange for whatever Sheldrake promises them. They do not certainly like that at all, but they are also tempted a lot by the dangling possibility of success or happiness, and that is something we can still identify with, considering how many of us let ourselves manipulated and exploited by our capitalistic system.

The screenplay by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, which deservedly won a Best Screenplay Oscar (The movie won five Oscars including Best Director and Best Picture, by the way), is precise and succinct in its execution, while effortlessly rolling its two main characters toward their respective moments of revelation in the middle of a Christmas party held inside the company. While Kubelik happens to learn more about why she should not have trusted Sheldrake at all from the very beginning, Baxter comes to realize that she is the one Sheldrake is having an affair with, and this moment feels all the more heartbreaking as they keep their respective realizations to themselves.

Shot in black and white film, the movie often emphasizes the gloomy situations of Baxter and Kubelik while distancing itself from the usual cheery holiday mood. Early in the film, we see a vast office space where Baxter and numerous employees work day by day, and that reminds us again and again of his meek and lonely existence inside the company. In case of Kubelik, we cannot help but notice how she is often objectified by those despicable executives besides Sheldrake, and you will see how much the movie influences the recent acclaimed TV drama series “Mad Men”, which is also mainly set in a New York City company during the 1960s and often sharply notices the misogynistic aspects of the American business world dominated by white male executives.

The story becomes more serious when Kubelik attempts to commit suicide in Baxter’s apartment not long after Sheldrake leaves. After she is fortunately saved by Baxter and his neighbor who happens to be a doctor, both Kubelik and Baxter come to sense and then face more of their growing mutual feelings. Nevertheless, they still hesitate as recognizing and respecting their respective status, and there is a poignant moment when Kubelik indirectly expresses her emotional attachment to Baxter (“Why can’t I ever fall in love with someone nice like you?”).

The movie was a big turning point for the acting careers of Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLane. Around that time, Lemmon quickly rose as a comedy actor after winning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his hilarious breakthrough turn in “Mister Roberts” (1955), but he began to demonstrate more serious sides of his talent in “The Apartment”, and that eventually led to a number of memorable works ranging from “Days of Wine and Roses” (1962) to “Glengarry Glen Ross” (1992). Just like Lemmon, MacLane was regarded as a new comedy performer to watch in Hollywood during that time, and “The Apartment” certainly boosted her career, which came to have a fair share of other excellent movies such as “Terms of Endearment” (1983).

On the whole, “The Apartment” is one of the highpoints in Wilder’s legendary careers, and it also has one of the best closing lines which deserves to be mentioned along with the last line of Wilder’s another great comedy film “Some Like It Hot” (1959). The finale may feel a bit too sentimental for some of you, but the movie definitely earns that along with its two main characters, and it will surely touch you a lot. After all, folks, isn’t it really nice for us to see ordinary people doing the right thing, considering these despairing days for the humanity during the 21st century?