Don't Make a Scene: The Apartment

The Story: 2024 was a rotten year—the chaser to a crappy decade. Too many people lost jobs, lost pets, lost friends and family, lost love. Lost hope. We need a drink in the worst way.

And the worst way would be alone in a smoke-filled bar on Christmas Eve with no place else to go.

The Apartment is a different kind of Holiday film—almost an anti-Holiday film, for there's not a Hallmark moment that the philandering executives who have control over "Bud" Baxter's upward mobility (and the key to his apartment) can't corrupt. They give lip-service to the Sanctity of Marriage and Family, and the rest of the anatomy to their mistresses. For "Bud," his turning a blind eye to the hypocrisy was an opportunity for advancement. But now, he sees the cost to the woman he's befriended and saved from a suicide attempt, Miss Kubelik, and he doesn't like what he sees now that his eyes have been opened.

So, he's drinking himself blind at the local bar.

This scene is great on so many levels. It's one of Billy Wilder's "time-capsule" moments where for an instant, a timely reference is made to "date" the film—the rest is evergreen, working in any era. I love the one-shot aspect of it, too; the two bar-flies aren't even looking at each other, except as reflections in a presumed mirrored bar, and their conversation is a bit askance, as well. There's communication, but no connection—except in the dramatic pauses where a mutual drink is called for. Both players have little intricate moments of expression change that it almost has the feel of a Burns and Allen routine.

It's just another lovely slice of Humble Pie that's served up regularly to the part-time resident of The Apartment.

Here's how.

The Set-Up: Christmas Eve—a time for men to be with their wives and girl-friends.

And, hopefully, they'll never meet.

For fast-tracker C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon), Christmas Eve means a bar is his home away from home. And his home is a love nest for the executives at the insurance company, where he is employed. Tonight his heart has been stabbed with a sprig of holly, as he's found that his boss, Mr. Scheldrake (Fred MacMurray) is using his apartment for a tryst with the gal that Baxter likes, elevator girl Miss Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine). It's Christmas Eve, and Baxter is hitting the nog with a bunch of other executives and bar-flies to the point where there's no elbow-room. And he's so in the bag that he wouldn't notice that the straw wrapper that's been shot his way was Cupid's Arrow. But it's another ship-wrecked sailor on the Sea of Love, Margie McDougall (Hope Holiday), and she and Bud pass in the Night Before Christmas.

Action!

Margie leaves her place, and carrying her handbag and her empty glass, comes up alongside Bud. Without a word, she reaches up and removes the wrapper from Bud's bowler.
MARGIE: You buy me a drink, I'll buy you some music. (sets the glass down)
MARGIE: Rum Collins.
Not waiting for an answer, she heads for the juke box.
Bud looks after her noncommittally, then turns to the bartender.
BUD: Rum Collins. (indicating martini glass) And another one of these little mothers.
At the juke box, Margie has dropped a coin in and made her selection. The music starts -- ADESTE FIDELIS. She rejoins Bud at the bar just as the bartender is putting down their drinks in front of them. Bud removes the new olive, adds it to the pattern on the counter in front of him. They both drink, staring straight ahead. For quite a while, there is complete silence between them.

MARGIE:(out of nowhere)You like Castro?  

(a blank look from Bud)

MARGIE:I mean -- how do you feel about Castro?

BUD: What is Castro?

MARGIE: You know, that big-shot down in Cuba with the crazy beard.

BUD: What about him?

MARGIE: Because as far as I'm concerned, he's a no good fink. Two weeks ago I wrote him a letter -- never even answered me.

BUD: That so.

MARGIE: All I wanted him to do was let Mickey out for Christmas.

BUD: Who is Mickey?

MARGIE: My husband. He's in Havana -- in jail.

BUD: Oh. Mixed up in that revolution?

MARGIE: Mickey? He wouldn't do nothing like that. He's a jockey. They caught him doping a horse.

BUD: Well, you can't win 'em all.

They sit there silently for a moment, contemplating the injustices of the world.

MARGIE(to herself): 'Twas the night before Christmas/ And all through the house/ Not a creature was stirring --Nothing --No action --

MARGIE(to herself): Dullsville!

(drinks; to Bud)

MARGIE: You married?

BUD: No.

MARGIE: Family?

BUD: No.

MARGIE: A night like this, it sort of spooks you to walk into an empty apartment.

BUD: I said I had no family -- I didn't say I had an empty apartment.

They both drink.

 

The Apartment

Words by I.A.L. Diamond and Billy Wilder

Pictures by Joseph LaShelle and Billy Wilder

 
The Apartment is available on DVD, Blu-Ray and 4k UHD from MGM Home Video.

Don't Make a Scene: Some Like It Hot

The Story: There's sexist...and then there's sexist. 

And these polarizing days, Some Like It Hot lands right in the middle—or you could say, the fuzzy end of the lollipop. 

"The left" curls its pursed lip at the portrayal of women and the generally juvenile attitude of the two-musicians-on-the-run and their leering—if not stalking—attitude towards the women who comprise Sweet Sue and her Society Syncopaters, especially singer Sugar Cane. And "the right"? Well, with their pearl-clutching (and despite aversions to a "nanny state") they have their hair on fire about shared bathrooms and...drag.

Which, with Some Like It Hot is a real problem.

Right now—as I write this—two states (Tennessee and Montana) ban drag shows in public—Texas signed such a law, as well, but a Federal judge struck it down. 

And when I heard the news, my first thought was "Well, there goes any outdoor showings of 'Tootsie'!" Or Some Like it Hot. Or any Monty Python...anything...or certain Bugs Bunny cartoons...or I Was a Male War Bride. All sorts of movies. Tons of them. The TV series "M*A*S*H". Keep it inside, kids. Because they all feature performances in drag. It's enough to make Milton Berle turn in his grave.

Now, there is nuance here—hard to believe any of these bills could have "nuance". Those states want to ban public drag shows outright. There is a long, dour line of states that want to ban children from drag shows: Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and West Virginia (or, as I, movie-lover that I am, like to call them "The Usual Suspects").

You couldn't show Some Like It Hot at, say, a drive-in theater. You certainly couldn't take kids to see it. Whether those arrested for violating the law would be parents or the folks presenting it, you can probably guess who it would be. I'm way past thinking about it. The legislators who voted for these cockamamie things certainly were. Past thinking, I mean.

What I do know is that I wouldn't live in a state that would ban Some Like it Hot or any of the ones I mentioned from being shown at a drive-in. I don't like living in a "nanny state." Even if the nanny is in drag.

It should be noted that Some Like It Hot was one of the very first movies inducted into the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant"—something legislators rarely are.

 

"Well...nobody's perfect."

 

The Set-up: Musicians Jerry (Jack Lemmon) and Joe (Tony Curtis) are on the lam, after being witnesses to a St. Valentine's Day Massacre-style machine-gunning by their current employer "Spats" Columbo (George Raft). And the man hadn't even paid them yet! They need to get out of town and probably the state, but they have no money and they need to work! What's a sax and upright-bass player gonna do?

Play for "the other side", I guess.

They sign on with a traveling girls band, boarding the train in disguise, where they meet one of their band-mates, Sugar (Marilyn Monroe).

 

Action!

 

There is a general horse-laugh from the girls. 

Joe and Jerry have now reached their seats, and are taking off their coats. 

JERRY (in a delighted whisper) How about that talent? 

JERRY This is like falling into a tub of butter. 

JOE Watch it, Daphne! 

JERRY When I was a kid, I used to have a dream -- I was locked up in this pastry shop overnight -- 

JERRY with all kinds of goodies around -- jelly rolls and mocha eclairs and sponge cake and Boston cream pie and cherry tarts -- 

JOE Listen, stupe -- no butter and no pastry. We're on a diet! 

JERRY Oh, sure, sure...

Jerry starts to hang his coat across a cord running above the window. 

JOE (grabbing him) Not there -- 

JOE that's the emergency brake. 

JERRY (clutching bosom) Now you've done it! NOW YOU HAVE DONE IT!

JOE Done what? 

JERRY Tore off one of my chests. 

JOE You'd better go fix it. 

JERRY You better come help me. 

Jerry leads the way toward the rest rooms,

which are just beyond their seat.

Instinctively he heads for the one marked MEN. 

Joe grabs him, steers him back toward the one marked WOMEN. 

JOE This way, Daphne. 

JERRY (clasping his chest desperately) Now you tore the other one. 

Joe opens the curtain, propels him inside. 

INT. WOMEN'S LOUNGE

There is another customer there -- 

Sugar. She has one leg up on the leather settee, her skirt is slightly raised, and she is about to remove a small silver flask tucked under her garter. 

As Jerry and Joe come in, she guiltily pulls her skirt down. 

SUGAR OH! 

JERRY (arms folded across chest) Terribly sorry. 

SUGAR (relieved) That's all right. I was afraid it was Sweet Sue. 

SUGAR You won't tell anybody, will you? 

JOE Tell what? 

SUGAR (taking the flask out and unscrewing the cap) If they catch me once more, they'll boot me out of the band. 

(pours a drink into a paper cup) 

SUGAR You the replacement for the bass and the sax? 

JERRY That's us. I'm Daphne -- 

JERRY and this is Josephine. 

SUGAR I'm Sugar Cane. 

JERRY Hi!

JOE Sugar Cane?

SUGAR I changed it. It used to be Sugar Kowalczyk. 

JERRY Polish? 

SUGAR Yes. I come from a very musical family. My mother is a piano teacher and my father was a conductor. 

JOE Where did he conduct? 

SUGAR On the Baltimore and Ohio. 

JOE Oh. 

SUGAR I play the ukulele. And I sing too. 

JERRY (to Joe) She sings, too. 

SUGAR I don't really have much of a voice -- 

SUGAR but then it's not much of a band, either. I'm only with 'em because I'm running away. 

JOE Running away? From what? 

SUGAR Don't get me started on that. 

SUGAR (extending flask) Want a drink? It's bourbon. 

As Jerry reaches for it, his bosom starts to slip again,

and he quickly refolds his arms. 

JERRY We'll take a rain check. 

SUGAR (downs cupful of bourbon) I don't want you to think that I'm a drinker. I can stop any time I want to -- 

SUGAR only I don't want to. Especially when I'm blue. 

JOE We understand. 

SUGAR All the girls drink -- but I'm the one that gets caught. 

SUGAR That's the story of my life. 

SUGAR I always get the fuzzy end of the lollipop. 

She has screwed the cap back on the flask,

and now slips it under her garter. 

SUGAR Are my seams straight? 

JERRY (examining her legs) I'll say. 

SUGAR See you around, girls. 

She waves and exits into the Pullman car. 

JERRY Bye, Sugar. 

JERRY (to Joe) We been playing with the wrong bands. 

JOE Down, Daphne! 

JERRY How about the shape of that liquor cabinet? 

Joe spins him around, and unbuttoning the back of his dress, starts to fix the slipped brassiere. 

JOE Forget it. One false move, and they'll toss us off the train --

JOE there'll be the police, and the papers, and the mob in Chicago... 

JERRY (not listening) Boy, would I like to borrow a cup of that Sugar. 

JOE (whirling him around, grabbing the front of his dress) Look -- no butter, no pastry, and no Sugar! 

JERRY (looking down at his chest, pathetically) You tore it again!

Some Like it Hot

 

Words by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond

 

Pictures by Charles Lang and Billy Wilder

 

Some Like it Hot is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from M-G-M Home Entertainment and the Criterion Collection.