newcritics - Latest Comments in “Shut up and deal…”

Re: “Shut up and deal…”

Disneys — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:40:22 -0000

Blunt to the extreme, Ressler's candor has helped create quite a reputation for Big Fat, the New York City-based agency he launched in 1999, primarily because disney acting auditions his no-holds-barred attitude carries over into the shop's work for clients.Ressler and his equally candid staff have helped a growing list of clients do guerrilla marketing the right way — in some cases after telling them how they're doing it wrong. “It's amazing how many brands do the right things at the right times with the wrong people,” he says.

Re: “Shut up and deal…”

David Ehrenstein — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 10:24:11 -0000

Melville said MacMurray "invented underplaying." You can se that quite clearyl here as he's a complete monster, but if we're cued to that fact right away the film falls apart. he hides his rattiness perfectly. I don't agree about "the skeeve factor." Lemmon's Baxter is for the most part a sad and lathetically lonely man. I ove the way he hanngs all over Hope Holliday in the bar is sensational. And there's nothing "cute" about MacLaine's suicide attempt.

In many ways "The Apartment" conveys the true spririt of Christmans just as "Christmas Holiday" does. It's suicidal depression to the Max!

Re: “Shut up and deal…”

gerardjones — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:50:44 -0000

I think MacMurray showed a lot cojones by taking on this role while he was shifting his career into Disney comedies and M3S. Especially at a time when the "wholesome image" was so important, especially on TV. Easy to imagine either Uncle Walt or his TV sponsors (General Motors, I think), flipping out over Sheldrake. Don't know what fed into his decision--not caring, loving Wilder, wanting to prove he wasn't a sap?--but it was a great one.

Re: “Shut up and deal…”

gerardjones — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:46:35 -0000

I kinda stuck my comment on this in the wrong place, up above....

Re: “Shut up and deal…”

gerardjones — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:45:43 -0000

Van Dyke had a Lemmony style he arrived at on his own--I think the times nurtured such--but I'm sure he and Carl Reiner were also conscious of building Rob Petrie, their own sensitive, hapless, loveable, modern New York husband/lover on The Apartment. Biggest comedy of 1960, big rage at the Oscars in early '61, DVD Show hits the air in Sept. '61...

Re: “Shut up and deal…”

gerardjones — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:42:46 -0000

Critical opinions of Wilder in the '60s are interesting because of the way he was criticized both by the "wholesome" mainstream for his cynicism and by the edgy art-house types for his vulgarity and sentimentalism. Both the Catholic League of Decency and Pauline Kael went to town on "Kiss Me Stupid." Looking back, both sides seem wrong to me, and yet both sides make sense, because he was unique in the way he stayed within what was entertaining and reassuring to most American moviegoers while at the same time exposing our hypocrisies and compromises.In the end, "The Apartment" resonates far more with me as a portrait of real people trying to make sense of a morally upside-down world than something Kael would have praised at the time, say "La Dolce Vita." (Don't get me wrong, I like L.D.V.--just comparing it to The Apt as a "relatable" portrait of almost-real people.)

Re: “Shut up and deal…”

Dan Leo — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:16:39 -0000

Y'know, I love Wilder, but for perhaps completely subjective reasons this is one of my least favorite films of his. I've just never been able to get over what I can only call "the skeeve factor". I agree with Dave Ehrenstein that this may be Wilder's most European film, and somehow I think I would find it easier to take if it were a German or French movie from the late 30s, and not a German/French movie queasily transplanted to 1960s Manhattan. And I love Jack Lemmon but he's just way too "busy" for me in this. My favorite part of the movie oddly enough is Fred MacMurray, who I think plays the part coldly and brilliantly, so refreshing opposite the near-terminal cutesiness of Lemmon and MacLaine. Watching the movie again the other night I was reminded of an interview in a film rag (the lamented "Take One") I read back around 1972 or so with the great Jean-Pierre Melville. The interviewer asked him who his favorite actor was and he said: "Fred MacMurray."

Re: “Shut up and deal…”

David Ehrenstein — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:32:49 -0000

Sorry I wasn't in here last night. This is one of my favorite Wilders. The Big Moment is right in the middle when Lemmon's C.C. Baxter gets his bowler hat and ask's MacLaine's Miss Kubelik if she has a mirror, and when she hand him the cracked mirror of her compact he learns EVERYTHING. It's a perfect visual and dramtic idea. In ertain ways this is Wilder's most German film. The view of office politics and Big City Living is very Weimar. I could easily see Fassbinder making a variation on this had he emigrated. Yes this is "Mad Men" territory but "The Apartment" was a contemporary film and "Mad Men" is a period piece. All the difference in the world. The climax of the film is MacLaine ditching McMurray in the Chines restaurant and running down the street with a big smile on her face as the music rises. I never fail to burst inot tears every time I see this. Happy endings get to me that way. And Woody Allen TOTALLY rips it off in "Manhattan." But that film doesn't so much as raise a sniffle.

Re: “Shut up and deal…”

clairehelene7 — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 09:49:48 -0000

I'm sorry I missed this discussion, as I love this movie. Sounds like you all had fun here. (Lance, your opening post was great!)

Re: “Shut up and deal…”

tomwatson — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 07:21:40 -0000

Ah that's well-said - you've put your finger on it. They are behaving badly according to the usual public mores (certainly of 1960) yet they're semi-forced into those actions by those with more power in big business. Essential decency - I buy that. (Also, I don't consider sentiment to be an epithet against film quality - but that's just me).

Re: “Shut up and deal…”

JamesS — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:55:32 -0000

I'm guessing he needed a payday to pop for a KOKOSCHKA.

http://arte.observatorio.info/wp-content/upload...

Re: “Shut up and deal…”

noelbotevera — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:52:45 -0000

I don't think he did science fiction, or horror. But what he did was cherce.

Re: “Shut up and deal…”

JamesS — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:50:50 -0000

....

Re: “Shut up and deal…”

Vanwall — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:46:24 -0000

He was a go-to guy.

Re: “Shut up and deal…”

LanceManion — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:45:10 -0000

Last thought from me because I need to take my five aspirin and climb into bed. But on the subject of Wilder's range as a director: The Spirit of St Louis??????? Who thought to put him on that one?

Re: “Shut up and deal…”

JamesS — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:42:26 -0000

We shouldn't forget that Dr. and Mrs. Dreyfuss wound up snoozing through the whole ordeal.

Re: “Shut up and deal…”

noelbotevera — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:39:51 -0000

For the record my girl and I's theme song is Weird Al's "I Get the Feeling You Don't Love Me Anymore." Sophomoric, but there it is.

Re: “Shut up and deal…”

LanceManion — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:38:43 -0000

Vanwall, it was all piano music for us. I've known some people for whom it was kazzoos.

Re: “Shut up and deal…”

noelbotevera — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:37:22 -0000

I think but I'm not sure it's Kubelik's suicide theme.

That latest 'disaster' isn't averted by Baxter; just happens in Kubelik's head. But I do think we're supposed to be zinged by it, at least while she does the Stairmaster bit--it's when we see the foaming bottle that we're supposed to connect it with the film's last running gag.

Difficult posting here. Heavy traffic? And I wish I could edit my spelling...

Re: “Shut up and deal…”

Vanwall — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:31:40 -0000

Didn't those violins play for your girl when she ran after you? I swear.... But the gunshot was needed for the release of tension - so he could sap you when you stuck your head in the door, and all those little stars make ya goofy.

Re: “Shut up and deal…”

LanceManion — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:31:34 -0000

Like I said, I agree about the music. Plus, isn't that Fran and *Sheldrake's* song?

Re: “Shut up and deal…”

LanceManion — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:29:20 -0000

Although, Noel, I am with you on the music there at the end.

Re: “Shut up and deal…”

noelbotevera — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:28:37 -0000

You're right, Baxter should't of died, or the movie should have had a darker tone. I don't think we needed that fake gunshot tho--or the voilins as Kubelik runs up the steps.

Re: “Shut up and deal…”

Vanwall — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:24:30 -0000

This one is a sugar-coated poison-frog dart - it's indictment is more of the audience than it is of H'wood - there but for the grace of God go I, or the grace of forgiving friends, or wives or lovers - its message is implicit: You are them.

Re: “Shut up and deal…”

Campaspe — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:19:13 -0000

But I think the end is perfectly in keeping with what's gone before -- a series of disasters, barely averted by the main character's essential decency. It would wreck the tone if Baxter died, where would that come from? The movie's subversive aspect is that you are being asked to sympathize with two people who are behaving quite badly, one having an affair with a married man (with kids yet) and another who's let his apartment become a cathouse. You're fighting against the repulsion you might feel otherwise, whereas with SB it's a pure poison dart leveled at Hollywood.