I'm going to revise my rating of The Apartment from this post.

I reacted prematurely in stating that some of the traditional elements seem dated by today's standards. Over the last year or so, I've watched a lot of Billy Wilder movies, and if asked who was my favorite writer/director, he would be it. What makes Billy Wilder so great is that his movies are timeless. Some Like It Hot is still hilarious. Sunset Blvd. is still a depressing story about clinging to lost dreams. Sabrina still tops any recent romantic comedies. The Apartment still holds up against the finest dramas.

Yes, I called The Apartment a 'drama.' See, that's the whole thing. Looking at The Apartment from a comedic perspective, it's funny, sure. But looking at it as a drama with comedic aspects is when the movie clicks.

This time around I focused a lot more on Shirley MacLaine, who plays Miss Kubelik so fantastically that it's impossible to not see how any man would want to take her home. But there's that other side, the side where she thinks, "I was jinxed from the word go. The first time I was ever kissed was in a cemetery." She's stuck in a place she doesn't want to be, and that in itself is depressing.

But then we see Jack Lemmon, fixed on his career. He loves Miss Kubelik, sure, but that comes a distant second to him willing to get pneumonia just for a chance at a promotion. It's very traditional: he wants a promotion, but he needs Miss Kubelik. Miss Kubelik makes him a better person -- she makes him be the one guy out of 31,000 who takes his hat off in the elevator. Not only do we sympathize with Jack Lemmon's character, but we're cheering for him to break the business shell and become a human being.

Billy Wilder may not be the most innovative director of all time, but he knows how to make a movie entertaining. In an interview he said, his first nine commandments were 'Thou Shalt Not Bore,' and his tenth was something like, 'Thou Shalt Have Rights to Final Cut.' That may explain why his movies are so good.

9.5/10