FILM: THE APARTMENT

FILM: THE APARTMENT (1960)

I know I saw THE APARTMENT when it came out in 1960, but at the tender age of 13, I couldn’t have understood all of its implications.

It was a treat to see it with my much-older eyes on Turner Classic Movies. Amid some wonderfully executed comedy, there are some very dark moments, heart-stopping moments, that hold up an astonishingly clear reflection. There are splendid performances by Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacClaine and Fred MacMurray. This Oscar-winning best film for 1960 also won awards for Billy Wilder for screenplay and direction.

It’s hard to believe that it is half a century since 1960 and that I lived and breathed that almost-ancient air. What was portrayed was standard issue for corporate America. Remnants of the business culture remain today: that by and large, executive men rule the roost, that we are dehumanized into the smallest possible work spaces, that attitudes about what is now called sexual harassment remain about the same.

Those who were middle-aged wink- and- a- nod married executives may still be out there as octogenarians or so as we live longer and longer. If they’re out there, they certainly haven’t changed, except for some special workshops to make them politically correct and legally savvy.

As a young girl, I watched PRIVATE SECRETARY on television and imagined myself decked out in a hat and white gloves, doting on a handsome male boss. There weren’t many choices for women back then. A girl could become a nurse, a bookkeeper, a secretary or a teacher. The employment section of the paper read, “Help Wanted – Male” and “Help Wanted – Female.”

Set in New York at a very large insurance company, we encounter the story teller and protagonist, C. C. Baxter, a likeable clerk in a sea of identical desks as far as the eye can see. He would go unnoticed there for a lifetime, except for one thing: he had a small apartment in an anonymous and shabby neighborhood. His house key was his bargaining chip. He dealt with four middle managers who routinely used his flat for their sexual liaisons, mostly with ‘girls’ from work. What’s brilliant, I realize, is that rather than cast Baxter as a sleazy guy, he is totally affable, almost innocent. We would expect an actor like Rob Lowe in this situation, but we get something completely different. Although we’re tipped off that Baxter might be using the apartment in order to gain advancement, we are thrown a curve. How could Jack Lemmon be a sleaze ball? This was quite unsettling to me and I fought it throughout the film last night. But it makes splendid sense. Baxter, whose place on the food chain is only somewhat higher than the secretaries and the elevator operator, is really any of us. He knows what he’s doing is wrong, but it’s his only chance to possibly move up. As the managers fight for use of the apartment and Baxter is more and more displaced from his home, the quartet decides to write up rave performance reviews for him. He takes the elevator up to the executive suite where he gets a minor title and his own office. As his self confidence improves he notices that all of the executives are coming on to one of the elevator operators. Fran becomes his fantasy. She is the antithesis of the loose women who are squired by the bosses to his apartment. Fran is his ideal.

Baxter is summoned by the head of personnel. He has heard about the illicit use of the flat. Rather than showing displeasure, he wants to get in on the action. Suddenly Baxter becomes the executive’s personal assistant, his right-hand man. There’s only one problem. The married boss’ affair is with Fran! But Fran is head-over-heels in love with the cheating husband. He has lied to her about a future together and she is devastated enough to take an overdose of Baxter’s sleeping pills as she finds herself betrayed by a serial womanizer. If this seems not to fit into the comedic format, it is just a dose of reality lurking beside the pratfalls. Life is messy. The messiness doesn’t send out announcements. This is worth a watch just for the character development.

There is so much to think about in this film!

THE ALPHABET KILLER

FILM: THE ALPHABET KILLER – 2008

Set in Rochester, New York in the early 1970s, this dark film starring Eliza Dushku, Timothy Hutton and Cary Elwes is chilling and mysterious. Although we’re told that it is based on a true story, this is true only in the loosest sense. Yet, the fictionalized transition to the screen is an enhancement to an unresolved sequence of child rapes and murders in this rustbelt town in upstate New York.

What makes this film so interesting is precisely what’s been added: a young, female detective who is plagued by adult onset schizophrenia. While her detection skills are excellent, her increasingly bizarre symptoms, including hallucinations, discredit her on the force to the extent of first only continuing as a consultant and then confined to a desk job until she is confined to a mental institution by court order.

It’s striking that there is virtually no violence and little action. It is totally psychological. I liked this a great deal and recommend it. It had an extremely limited run and earned a pittance at the box office. I was glad to stumble over it on cable.

FILM: THE JONSES

FILM:  THE JONSES – 2010

I absolutely loved this dark comedy starring Demi Moore and David Duchovny.  The premise is brilliant:  create the ideal family and place them in an extravagant home with all of the trappings of a successful life.  Make them a family to be envied, the parents influential in the new community, the kids perfect in every way.  But they aren’t a real family, they’re a unit.  As salespeople/actors they work for a marketing company.  Their job is to sell luxury products to their envious neighbors.  It’s called ‘stealth marketing” and one gets more and more uncomfortable viewing this film.  We realize that we, too, could be taken in.  At its heart, it is a film about our society and our values in this consumerist culture.  It’s philosophical and psychological, dark at its heart, a cautionary tale.

This film had a very limited run and went straight to DVD and cable.  I just caught it on Showtime on Demand.

Thoughts on Susan Boyle

ESSAY:  SUSAN BOYLE

 What a sad situation.  This woman has been catapulted to fame for all the wrong reasons.  Sure, she is a strong singer, but there are a million strong female singers, most of whom will get nowhere and eventually realize that their day jobs will carry the day.  Others will be more determined and, if lucky, will work the lounges of their respective airports.  It’s a tough, heartbreaking business, in which newcomers seldom gain a foothold.  Unfortunately for Susan Boyle, her claim to fame is that she is frumpy and quite homely, but with a singing talent.  One has to wonder whether her often inappropriate mannerisms and seeming lack of self control are indicative of brain damage or other intellectual impairment.  Poor Susan had a fantasy life, despite her luckless appearance.  Don’t we all?  Susan, the girl, had to have been bullied; Susan, the woman, existed as best as she could in a simple Scottish village, living a matronly life, taking care of her mother until she passed, volunteering in church and singing locally.  It was a life Susan could manage.

I heard that it was her mother who urged Susan to enter a talent competition on the telly – a loving mother’s advice to a talented daughter.  Maybe Mum thought it would be therapeutic for the odd-duck, middle-aged daughter; maybe her mother never saw Susan as she was.  Obviously Mum never guided her daughter to fix herself up – strange not to have that maternal instinct…  Susan entered the Britain’s Got Talent competition in an extremely vulnerable state.  I think the producers saw their angle, to promote this fish out of water extraordinaire to the nth degree.  Susan was really exploited like a freaky sideshow performer.  And we all responded accordingly, with a mixture of horror, disgust and awe.  The Elephant Man sings!  Oh God!

 

Since she was so removed from the mainstream, she must have prayed with all of her heart that her talent would prevail, despite how she had been treated throughout her life.

With her mother gone, she had no basic support system, not even a job.  To her simple, fairy tale way of thinking, she had finally prevailed.  She had been touched by a magic wand and only good could come her way now.   

 

Susan had never experienced much pressure in her life, but she was instantly thrown into a boiling cauldron.  It had to be very confusing to her emotionally.  More people ridiculed her at one time than her limited defenses could take.  Many said she was a brilliant singer, many didn’t think much of her voice. All agreed that she was profoundly unattractive. She was hounded like. Princess Diana, with paparazzi acting like vultures. No one was there to protect her emotionally. She was a gold mine, ripe for the taking.  Second place wasn’t good enough.  She had to WIN.  As she faced a brutal, inhuman pressure cooker in the final week of the competition, she was starting to become unhinged.  People were turned off.  The singing monstrosity was reported to behave in an unseemly way.  I think it comforted people to turn against this person who was such a contradiction.  Their world was in order again.  Perhaps that’s why this odds-on favorite came in second, losing to a dance act that no one seemed to notice before. The voting public opted for an attractive, young, technically proficient winner, not the unsettling Susan Boyle.

 

Unprepared for the consequences of what was a failure in her own mind, she snapped and now she is in a psychiatric hospital, fighting her demons.  I hope that somewhere, somehow, someone does what’s right for Susan Boyle.  Poor soul.