- C. C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) has a different woman in his apartment every night. The record player is always blaring, and there's a mess of empty bottles to be taken out in the morning. It's tough even to walk through Baxter's living room without stumbling upon a stray hairpin or discarded article of clothing. His neighbors, Dr. and Mrs. Dreyfuss (Jack Kruschen and Naomi Stevens), wonder at Baxter's stamina, and the good doctor even encourages him to donate his body to science upon his presumed-to-be-imminent death. Everybody in the apartment complex thinks of Baxter as a fun-loving, libertine guy. But Baxter knows otherwise.
- More specifically, Baxter knows that he often works overtime in an effort to actually avoid his apartment, which has evolved into a communal love nest for several philandering managers (Ray Walston, David Lewis, Willard Waterman, and David White) at his insurance company. Baxter handles the scheduling and smuggles keys to his superiors, all of whom promise to put in the good word for him with the corporate personnel manager, Mr. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray). When Sheldrake catches wind of Baxter's arrangements, though, he makes it clear that there is no room for such immoral behavior in the company...unless, of course, Sheldrake gets to use the apartment, too. Baxter reluctantly duplicates his key and, as a result, lands that prized office on the 27th floor.
- It is on the way to the 27th floor every morning that Baxter encounters the elevator operator, Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine). Miss Kubelik is probably the only person in the building who has ever been kind to Baxter, and it isn't long before he's fallen completely in love with her. Unbeknownst to Baxter, however, Miss Kubelik is the woman who has been carrying on with Mr. Sheldrake in Baxter's apartment. In a particularly devastating scene -- one whose emotional intensity is only amplified by the raucous Christmas office party that surrounds it -- Baxter recognizes Miss Kubelik's broken compact as a souvenir that Sheldrake left behind in his apartment. The cracked mirror makes her look the way she feels, she says, which is an ominous indication of worse feelings to come.
- I guess it's no surprise that Billy Wilder, who dared to set a comedy in a German POW camp, was also bold enough to interrupt this film's many laughs with a harrowing suicide attempt, but damned if The Apartment doesn't work. The cast is perfect, starting with MacLaine, who is absolutely brilliant as a woman who really does seem like the walking, talking version of a cracked mirror. Lemmon's wonderfully expressive mannerisms prove that he could have been a silent film star, if not for the fact that he is also hilarious when delivering his lines. The seemingly infinite arrangement of office desks and superficial Christmas and New Year's celebrations provide the perfect environment for the film's many supporting actors and actresses, nearly all of whom play wonderfully detestable characters. It's probably impossible to end a review of this film without pointing out that it is pretty great, movie-wise.
