The Apartment is perfectly tuned - Film - Arts - Evening Standard
       

The Apartment is perfectly tuned

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Any film directed by Billy Wilder and written by the equally great I A L Diamond is worth watching and this 1960 comedy is one of the pair's very best.

It has Jack Lemmon as a drone in a large insurance firm who lets out his apartment so that his superiors (notably Fred MacMurray) can conduct their illicit affairs discreetly and he can gain a better footing on the corporate ladder. Wilder and Diamond's thoroughly jaundiced take on human nature is balanced by the fact that Lemmon is regarded as more sinned against than sinning and by Shirley MacLaine's performance as the put-upon lift girl who delivers the classic line: "When you're in love with a married man, you shouldn't wear mascara." Perfectly tuned.

The Apartment
Cert: PG

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