Jack Lemmon is perfect as C.C. Baxter, a downtrodden office drone (or “some schnook” as one of his colleagues calls him) working for a faceless insurance company, ironically called Consolidated Life. Ironic, considering its employees regularly cheat on their wives, using Baxter’s apartment as a convenient love nest for their illicit activities, often leaving its tenant to pace the streets alone. Baxter, though, uses his philandering colleagues to work his way up the career ladder, eventually ending up as assistant to the womanising boss Mr Sheldrake (a steely-eyed, cold-as-ice Fred MacMurray)—who happens to be having an affair with Baxter’s object of affection, elevator operator Miss Kubelik (a radiant Shirley MacLaine). When Miss Kubelik overdoses on sleeping pills, Baxter is left to pick up the pieces, but will he get the girl?
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The Apartment is one of those films whose joys don’t age. And though it’s essentially a bittersweet comedy, it has at its heart a bitingly bleak view of corporate America that still has enormous relevance.
John Smithies
Author
John Smithies is a former reporter for The EpochTimes based in London.
