Billy Wilder was just coming off the success of what is perhaps now his most famous film, Some Like it Hot, when he decided to work with Jack Lemmon again on The Apartment. While Some Like it Hot was a comedic and lighthearted romp, The Apartment had a much more ambiguous angle, and stands out today as a somewhat cynical and dark comedy about the foibles of corporate culture and sex. Adapting the story from Noel Coward's Brief Encounter, an anecdote about a Hollywood affair that ended in murder, and an anecdote related to co-writer I.A.L. Diamond after a post-breakup suicide attempt, the screenplay for The Apartment has become one of the most memorable in movie history.
Wilder was notorious for his loyalty to the script, and he expected his actors to maintain this loyalty during shooting. Two exceptions that stand out in the film are the moment in which Baxter squeezes the nasal spray in the air in Sheldrake's office (an improvisatory touch courtesy of Jack Lemmon) and when Baxter is punched in the face by Tim (it was intended to be a near miss). The film is filled with jokes and tragedies alike, and modern critics have noted Wilder's witty in-jokes and references in the film. For the film blog for MoMA, Charles Silver writes, "Like the New Wave directors in France at the time, Wilder allows himself a few in-jokes: evoking his earlier Oscar-winning The Lost Weekend; poking fun at Marilyn Monroe (star of his recent The Seven Year Itch and Some Like It Hot), whom he had come to dislike and who is embodied here by a look-alike/impersonator (Joyce Jameson); and mocking television’s destruction of classic movies (Grand Hotel, Stagecoach) with crappy reception and endless commercials. As always, Wilder presents all this with a subversive edginess." While Wilder's film might look on the surface like a simple comedy, it is, in fact, a more finely layered work.
Reviews were very mixed at the time of the film's release, but that did not stop the Academy from honoring it with 10 nominations. Some critics hold it to be one of the greatest films of all time. In a retrospective article about the film, acclaimed critic Roger Ebert wrote of the film, and of Wilder's influence in general, "The valuable element in Wilder is his adult sensibility; his characters can't take flight with formula plots, because they are weighted down with the trials and responsibilities of working for a living. In many movies, the characters hardly even seem to have jobs, but in The Apartment they have to be reminded that they have anything else."
