The Apartment

The Apartment is a 1960 American romantic comedy-drama film directed and produced by Billy Wilder from a screenplay he co-wrote with I. A. L. Diamond. It stars Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, and Fred MacMurray, with Ray Walston and Edie Adams in supporting roles.

The film follows an insurance clerk (Lemmon) who, in hopes of climbing the corporate ladder, allows his superiors to use his Upper West Side apartment to conduct their extramarital affairs. He becomes attracted to an elevator operator (MacLaine) in his office building, unaware that she is having an affair with the head of personnel (MacMurray).

The Apartment was distributed by United Artists to widespread critical acclaim and was a commercial success, despite controversy owing to its subject matter. It became the 8th highest-grossing film of 1960. At the 33rd Academy Awards, the film was nominated for ten awards and won five, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. Lemmon, MacLaine, and Jack Kruschen were nominated for Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actor respectively, and Lemmon and MacLaine won Golden Globe Awards for their performances. Promises, Promises, a 1968 Broadway musical by Burt Bacharach, Hal David, and Neil Simon, was based on the film.

The Apartment has come to be regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, appearing in lists by the American Film Institute and Sight and Sound magazine. In 1994, it was one of 25 films selected for inclusion to the Library of Congress National Film Registry.

C.C. "Bud" Baxter is a lonely minor office worker at a large insurance company in New York City. To climb the corporate ladder, he allows four company managers to take turns borrowing his Upper West Side apartment for their extramarital affairs. Baxter meticulously juggles the "booking" schedule; overheard sounds of women and partying from his apartment and empty liquor bottles in his trash convince his neighbors that he is a playboy.

Baxter earns glowing performance reviews from the four managers, flagging the attention of personnel director Jeff Sheldrake. Sheldrake deduces the real reason, but promises Baxter a promotion in return for a key to his apartment, starting that night. As compensation for such short notice, he gives Baxter two tickets to The Music Man and promotes him (Baxter has a personal office now). Baxter asks Fran Kubelik, an elevator operator in the office building to whom he is attracted, to join him. She explains she already has a date for the evening, but agrees to meet him at the theater before showtime. Her date turns out to be with Sheldrake, whom she had been trysting before breaking it off. When Sheldrake tells her that he plans to divorce his wife to be with her, she agrees to go with him to Baxter's apartment, while Baxter waits forlornly outside the theater. She leaves a compact with a cracked mirror in the apartment, which Baxter then gives to Sheldrake

During the company's raucous Christmas Eve party, Baxter is very proud to tell Fran about his promotion until he sees in her hands the pocket mirror, she had left at home and realizes that it is her that Sheldrake is seeing in secret. Baxter does not tell Fran what he has realized. Sheldrake's secretary Miss Olsen tells Fran that her boss has had numerous affairs with office personnel, including herself. Later, Fran confronts Sheldrake at Baxter's apartment. When she gives him a wrapped Christmas present, he gives her a $100 bill from his wallet and tells her to buy herself something expensive. Claiming he loves her, he rushes for the train back to his family in White Plains.

Finding out that Fran is the woman Sheldrake has been taking to his apartment, Baxter gets drunk at a local bar. Killing time before he can go home, he allows himself to be picked up by a married woman; they then head back to his apartment. There, he discovers Fran passed out on his bed from an overdose of his sleeping pills. He ditches the woman and enlists his neighbor, Dr. Dreyfuss, to revive Fran. Baxter implies that he was responsible for the incident; Dreyfuss scolds him for philandering and advises him to "be a mensch."