C.C.Baxter works for an insurance firm of thirty-something thousand employees, in a city of eight million some-odd people, and works at desk eight hundred and whatever. I couldn't tell you, but Baxter sure could. He is a good natured, affable fellow who works hard and has ambitions. Unfortunately he is a complete pushover with an aptitude for getting himself into situations which he can't soon get out of. Therefore he remains nothing but a one of the numbers that he has memorized rattles off at will. But he has a plan...
We soon learn that his apartment has become available for use by his four bosses should they like an evening alone with a female companion other than their wives. This has been going on for some time. Baxter is roused from his bed at all hours of the night and left out in the cold at the whim of his superiors. He is expected to keep a steady supply of liquor and cheese crackers available for use, and he has developed an elaborate key trading system, and calendar of events. It seems that he works just as hard managing his apartment as he does at this actual job. His neighbors and landlady know nothing about his business, and assume that he likes to party extra hardy. He is, in essence, a pimp. But instead of whoring his girls, he whores his bedroom.
Why does he do this? Two reasons: to keep his job, and to advance his job. I'm not sure why only his bosses played that blackmail card--perhaps it is just in Baxter's nature not to out his bosses to their wives. It does not matter though. He doesn't seem to have many other options for standing out in a company where everybody is remarkably the same.
Even though their are thirty thousand same-faced workers in the building, the pretty fireball elevator attendant (Shirley MacLaine) remembers them all by name, and has stolen Baxter's heart. Unfortunately for him, he is unaware that she is the girlfriend of one of his bosses--that is until he stumbles across her in his apartment in the most unusual of situations. The results lead to a weekend of gin-rummy and spaghetti strained using a tennis racket (the poor man is hopelessly bacheloresque). The consequences are for you to see.
This seems like the simplest of love-triangle situations, but it is set in the most unusual and ridiculously funny of settings. We get a half-formed answer of how this situation even began involving men's tuxedos that spiraled out of control, but mostly we are left to our imagination with only the personality of helpless man as our clue. Jack Lemmon as Baxter is terrific. Billy Wilder plus Lemmon is terrific, but we already know that. It was Shirley MacLaine that took me by surprise. Most of the characters in Wilder films seem a bit larger than life; it's just the nature of his work. MacLaine, however, brought a sensibility and ease to his Wilder's words that I was not expecting. When she spoke it didn't sound like a script, it sounded like dialogue. It was unmistakably Wilder's words ("When you're in love with a married man you shouldn't wear mascara."), but they sounded so natural. I caught myself muttering "Wow, that is a terrific bit of acting" multiple times, and that is a mark of someone who is damn good at her craft.
There are scenes in this movie that were comedic genius. One of the Baxter's bosses brings over a girl he says looks like Marilyn Monroe. When I heard her voice I had to pause and look really hard to determine whether or not it was the genuine article. I chuckled when I thought of Billy Wilder auditioning girls and asking them to do their best Marilyn Monroe impressions. I'll bet half of all of the girls in L.A. showed up with an eyeliner mole on their faces doing throaty voices and wiggling their eyebrows. That would be one hell of an afternoon.
This is a hilarious and rather moving film. You love who you are supposed to love, hate who you are supposed to hate, and relish in all of the details that a great film-maker like Wilder likes to surprise you with.
4/4
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