FERNANDO’s CORNER ~ Posted October 23rd, 2016
Well, I have just finished watching for the first time in my life a landmark film: Billy Wilder’s Academy Award~winning “THE APARTMENT” (1960) (United Artists). Jack Lemmon plays C.C. Baxter ~ a “damn fool” as they call him in some moment of the film. Well not so much a damn fool because he’s lending his apartment to cheating men, with a purpose…he wants to get ahead in the big company he works for. In a way, he’s like Barbara Stanwyck’s character in “Baby Face” (1933); only he’s not sleeping his way to the top, but letting other men borrow his apartment to sleep and fool around with dames and cheat their wives in order to get ahead.
Human misery. Loneliness. Cheating. Flawed people, aren’t we all? Letting ourselves being used in that way…using other people. I’ve seen it all my life in the company I work for and in life in general, but thank God not me. I’m not like that. I’m a “human being”, a “mensch” just like C.C. Baxter in the end.
This bittersweet film is truly great. It’s very well acted all around with Jack Lemmon giving a superb performance. This is the kind film that should be revisited many times. A masterpiece.
( H O M E )
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CineMaven's ESSAYS from the COUCH 
I love classic films, I would say, nearly all of them have merit in my opinion, artistic or historical. But there are some rare ones that give you an indescribable good feeling. You are not sure if it’s the plot, the characters, the photography or in many cases, for me, the musical score. Sometimes its all the above, melding together so well it becomes an integral experience in your life. A film you find yourself referencing often, because much of your real life experiences afterward remind you of the ones in the film. For whatever reason I often think of Jack Lemmon and his Miss Baxter. Rewatching “The Apartment” feels like home, like seeing my old friends again. Other warm, fuzzy films of the early 60s that give me that feeling are “Barefoot in the Park”, “Sunday in New York” and “Dear Heart”.
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Hello Jane, thanks for leaving a comment. I feel pretty much like you with respect to Classic Film in general; for me they are like home; like the friends I did not have when I was kid; I felt safe and secure watching them. What you mention happens to me with certain dramas with which I have developed a strong connection over the years and which I watch from time to time; like Portrait of Jennie, Peter Ibbetson, I’ll Never Forget You, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Smilin’ Through, and Letter From an Unknown Woman, all of which transcend the barriers of space and time IMO and have a special magic.
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