FBG Movie Club: DotM: Billy Wilder (1 Viewer)

[KarmaPolice]

Month 1: Steven Spielberg

It's February, the month of romance! I had thought about Nora Ephron, but have different plans for female director. Both 80s and I gravitate to the classics, and thought Wilder would give great options even if people weren't into our lean for the month.

We both like the idea as we ramp up towards The Oscars is to have some sort of tie in discussion. One thing that was being discussed was how the landscape for rom coms have changed, and how they used to be more darlings of the academy back in the day. I love romantic comedies, so I also wanted to talk about that in general this month. What I have learned from the discussions around here is that I don't like straight comedies nearly as much as the public. I seem to need something else, which I guess is why some of my favorite movies are horror comedies and romantic comedies. I also like uncomfortable, cringe comedy which often comes in the form of a weird situation in a drama vs a straight comedy. Long story short, I have grown to love Billy Wilder's movies, often for those reasons. That's why he came to mind for a starting point in that genre and others. He also has won 6 Oscars, so that is a slam dunk starting point as we ramp up to March as well.

Month 2: BILLY WILDER

Category 1: Watch one of his "romantic" movies.
Category 2: Watch any Billy Wilder movie

Influences:

Watch an Ernst Lubitsch movie
Watch one of Billy's favorite movies. I found THIS list while poking around.
Watch a romantic comedy that influenced Wilder or one that you think he influenced.

 

[KarmaPolice]

Hint: There is a movie that qualifies for all 3 of those "influences" categories.

 

[Charlie Steiner]

Thanks for giving me an excuse to watch The Apartment again.

 

[KarmaPolice]

Also, just to be clear - I put "romantic" in quotes for a reason. I was loosely basing it on what I saw as a description when I scanned wikipedia. Sabrina is coded as a romantic comedy, but Some Like It Hot is a "crime comedy", but I fully had that in mind for the discussion of rom/coms. I am not fully versed in Wilder, but I am guessing there are other examples like that where it might be thought of as a different genre but has romance and relationships in the foreground.

 

[KarmaPolice]

My question for people who have seen more of his movies - are any of the movies past The Apartment worth the viewing?

Irma la Douce looked interesting because of the pairing, as did the The Fortune Cookie for the Lemmon/Mathhau pairing.

 

[Eephus]

Happy Black History Month

 

[Ilov80s]

My question for people who have seen more of his movies - are any of the movies past The Apartment worth the viewing?

Irma la Douce looked interesting because of the pairing, as did the The Fortune Cookie for the Lemmon/Mathhau pairing.

Irma La Douce and The Fortune Cookie are very good. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes is surprisingly solid. One, Two, Three is the best movie of his that for some reason never gets talked about. Great Cold War comedy starring James Cagney.

 

[jwb]

Sunset Boulevard is romantic, right?

Sort of?

 

[Ilov80s]

Sunset Boulevard is romantic, right?

Sort of?

Twisted but certainly has 2 romances in it. Well 3 if you count how much Norma loved herself.

 

[KarmaPolice]

My question for people who have seen more of his movies - are any of the movies past The Apartment worth the viewing?

Irma la Douce looked interesting because of the pairing, as did the The Fortune Cookie for the Lemmon/Mathhau pairing.

Irma La Douce and The Fortune Cookie are very good. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes is surprisingly solid. One, Two, Three is the best movie of his that for some reason never gets talked about. Great Cold War comedy starring James Cagney.

Awesome starting point for people like me then. These were the 3 I had starred as most intriguing.

 

[Ilov80s]

There's also Love in the Afternoon, which requires one to also stomach a much older man with Audrey Hepburn but it's a pretty good movie if you can get past that. A Foreign Affair has some romance. Not sure how we feel about movies Wilder wrote but didn't direct but Ball of Fire is quite good and Ninotchka is one of the best rom-coms ever IMO.

 

[Ilov80s]

Also, just to be clear - I put "romantic" in quotes for a reason. I was loosely basing it on what I saw as a description when I scanned wikipedia. Sabrina is coded as a romantic comedy, but Some Like It Hot is a "crime comedy", but I fully had that in mind for the discussion of rom/coms. I am not fully versed in Wilder, but I am guessing there are other examples like that where it might be thought of as a different genre but has romance and relationships in the foreground.

Double Indemnity certainly has romance in the foreground. Not much in the way of comedy though.

 

[KarmaPolice]

Also, just to be clear - I put "romantic" in quotes for a reason. I was loosely basing it on what I saw as a description when I scanned wikipedia. Sabrina is coded as a romantic comedy, but Some Like It Hot is a "crime comedy", but I fully had that in mind for the discussion of rom/coms. I am not fully versed in Wilder, but I am guessing there are other examples like that where it might be thought of as a different genre but has romance and relationships in the foreground.

Double Indemnity certainly has romance in the foreground. Not much in the way of comedy though.

Exactly. These are all the great discussions we were hoping to get.

Part of wanting to do this incarnation of Movie Club was me thinking about my top, or at least "Desert Island" directors. Spielberg was one I wrote down in the top 10, but wasn't sure how I felt about that. Wilder was a surprise to me as far as how quickly and high up the list I wrote him down. He was written down before Spielberg despite 2 of Steve's being in my favorite all time movies. I want to explore that more.

 

[Eephus]

Cluny Brown (1946 - directed by Ernst Lubitsch)

I just happened to watch this movie the other day to break up the Spielberg. Little did I know it would soon be relevant to the movie club. I'm writing it up now before my brain cache gets overwritten.

Cluny Brown was the last film directed by Lubitsch before he died the following year. It's a romantic comedy set in pre-WWII England. Cluny Brown is a working class girl from London sent to a country estate to work as a maid. Jennifer Jones stars alongside Charles Boyer who plays a Czech writer fleeing from the Nazi occupation. A lot of the humor is based on class differences as the two outsiders stir up the residents of the mansion and town. They get together at the end even though he's entirely too old for Cluny who's young and innocent (and beautiful and spunky). Boyer was almost twice her age but I guess times were different.

The movie had more chuckles based on the eccentricities of the characters than big belly laughs. Lubitsch got the most from the material. His style is never intrusive; his camera is there to capture the actors. This is similar to Wilder although it can also true of most Hollywood directors of the era. What really connects Lubitsch and Wilder is their comic timing, their ability to coordinate the dialog, camera and editing for maximum effect. Lubitsch and Wilder' stature as two of the masters of American movie comedy is more impressive when you consider English was their second language.

 

[KarmaPolice]

I posted in the other thread that I linked the months by starting The Best Years of Our Lives. It was the movie that saw on both Wilder's and Spielberg's favorite movies list. I will finish that tonight and then watch at least one tomorrow on my day off to officially kick off the month. Maybe in a couple days I will post where some of the more popular options for Wilder are streaming, or I guess just link justwatch.com It usually seems to take a couple days after the month for most accuracy as movies get axed and added to services.

 

[Eephus]

RE: Lubitsch

There's a good print of Ninotchka in the Internet Archive. It's a classic comedy starring the magnificent Greta Garbo.


ETA: ...and written by Billy Wilder

 

[Andy Dufresne]

Well I guess this is the month I get around to watching The Apartment.

I would recommend Ace In The Hole. Watched that last year and found it relevant to today.

 

[Keith R]

Interesting choice. Not one I would have considered, though I did like The Apartment. Nevertheless, I'm in

 

[The Man With No Name]

In. Love Billy Wilder and his films.

 

[Ilov80s]

Interesting choice. Not one I would have considered, though I did like The Apartment. Nevertheless, I'm in

What else have you seen from Wilder?

 

[Andy Dufresne]

Sunset Blvd and Double Indemnity are two of the five movies on my "If you don't like these, you probably won't like classic movies" list.

The others being Casablanca, Notorious, and All About Eve.

 

[Keith R]

I also really liked Double Indemnity, didn't realize that was his. I think that's it.

I DVRed Witness for the Prosecution months ago, this will make me finally watch it

 

[Ramsay Hunt Experience]

A terrific Lubitsch romantic comedy if you don't want to do The Shop Around the Corner, is Trouble in Paradise. A champagne cocktail of a movie. No idea if it's on any streaming platform whatsoever.

Big fan of Wilder. I can remember The Apartment getting me through what was up until then the darkest night of my life in college. And yeah, I was being dramatic over a girl. It wasn't that dark. But it was still welcome.

 

[Andy Dufresne]

And Some Like It Hot is genuinely funny.

 

[Eephus]

I know Lubitsch is supporting director this month but To Be or Not To Be is a movie that holds up well. It's hard to find comedy in Nazi-occupied Poland, especially when this movie was made in 1942 but somehow they do.

Jack Benny is someone who's not spoken about today but he was a superstar in his day and a very funny comedian. Mel Brooks remade To Be or Not To Be in the 80s but this is the version you want.

 

[Ilov80s]

I know Lubitsch is supporting director this month but To Be or Not To Be is a movie that holds up well. It's hard to find comedy in Nazi-occupied Poland, especially when this movie was made in 1942 but somehow they do.

Jack Benny is someone who's not spoken about today but he was a superstar in his day and a very funny comedian. Mel Brooks remade To Be or Not To Be in the 80s but this is the version you want.

So they call me Concentration Camp Erhardt

Highly recommend this movie. Very funny- also has some romance in it. A troupe of actors in occupied Poland use their skills to impersonate and infiltrate NAZI command to save a member of the Polish underground resistance.

 

[Ilov80s]

@KarmaPolice interesting choice for director given your disdain for voiceover and Wilder’s consistent use of it. Though Wilder usually only uses it at the start of the film for a quick set-up.

 

[Leroy Hoard]

I had a high school class called Film Lit that rolled a movie split into 4 reels Monday - Thursday, and then we took the test Friday. I remember getting a rare A on Some Like It Hot.

 

[Charlie Steiner]

Jack Benny is someone who's not spoken about today but he was a superstar in his day and a very funny comedian. Mel Brooks remade To Be or Not To Be in the 80s but this is the version you want.

My local NPR station plays 4 hours of old time radio every Sunday evening, and they'll occasionally play Jack Benny episodes. The current host seems to have taken it upon himself to apologize to the listeners ahead of time for the 'racist' portrayal of Rochester. Makes me feel like this guy (an aging boomer who actually grew up listening to these shows) has no clue about what he's listening to. The fact that Benny even had a black character with regular speaking lines was bold, but that wasn't the end of it; Rochester was on equal footing with the rest of the cast regarding quality one-liners and the character had his own life outside his job, which he would occasionally talk about. Instead of highlighting how Benny pushed civil rights forward in his own way, this NPR show would rather lump him in with all the other racists that ruled the airwaves than lift him up as a forward-thinking agent of change.

What also doesn't get talked about with Jack Benny is how he passed his TV show time slot (and audience) into the hands of the Smothers Brothers, who really turned up the dial of social justice/awareness to eleven. Even at Jack's stated age of 39 at the time, he must have been aware of what was coming from Tommy and Dickie. He knew their act, knew they were folk music-playing hippies in sheep's clothing. The last episode of his TV show was the first episode of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour; I can think of no stronger of an endorsement he could have made.

As a performer and superstar, Jack's mantra was 'give the guest stars the best lines.' I think that was his approach off camera/stage as well. Definitely not how it's done now.

 

[KarmaPolice]

Interesting choice. Not one I would have considered, though I did like The Apartment. Nevertheless, I'm in

This post interested me. With the bolded did you mean you didn't expect Wilder as a selection, you wouldn't consider it because you don't like his movies besides The Apartment, or something else?

 

[Don Quixote]

The Criterion 4K UHD Blu-Ray for “Double Indemnity” includes the great documentary, “Billy, How Did You Do It?” The director interviews Wilder talking about all of his films and relationship with Lubitsch for 3 hours. It is mostly in German with subtitles.

If you can find it, it is a great watch with fascinating insight into his movies.

 

[KarmaPolice]

The Criterion 4K UHD Blu-Ray for “Double Indemnity” includes the great documentary, “Billy, How Did You Do It?” The director interviews Wilder talking about all of his films and relationship with Lubitsch for three hours. It is mostly in German with subtitles.

If you can find it, it is a great watch with fascinating insight into his movies.

Thanks for the tip, I might have to pop that in.

For anybody with access to Kanopy, there is a lot of Wilder on there and one thing I added was a short documentary titled "Billy Wilder Speaks". They also have 7 movies - most of his heavy hitters.

 

[KarmaPolice]

@KarmaPolice interesting choice for director given your disdain for voiceover and Wilder’s consistent use of it. Though Wilder usually only uses it at the start of the film for a quick set-up.

I think my "no covers" take is stronger than anything about voiceover in my old age. What it comes down to is my opinion on voiceover is similar to my stance on GCI. I prefer not to have it in my movie, but both are sometimes a necessary tool and can be used with great results. For example, I can't see Shawshank or Fight Club done without it, and love both those movies. Both can also be used way too much and ruin a movie for me. Here is where I am critical of Scorsese, and why Goodfellas has never fully clicked with me.

I've had to wrestle with the fact that while it can really grate on me, I still love old movies and noirs, The Killing is one of my favorite Kubrick's despite over using it, and I am drawn to Terrace Malick movies. At this point I am way more anti-GCI than I am anti-voiceover.

 

[KarmaPolice]

And I just looked at the results of the streaming options for people and saw 1 vote for Kanopy, so @Andy Dufresne - you might like that doc if you didn't see it.

 

[KarmaPolice]

I hope access won't hinder talk this month. I looks like the main options for people don't have a ton.

PRIME: The main one I saw for free is The Fortune Cookie. I haven't tried Freevee on there, but it looks like a couple others Kiss Me Stupid and Private Life of Sherlock are on that option. Otherwise, it looked like a lot of the main ones are on there for a $4 rent.

HBOMAX: All I saw was Some Like it Hot

NETFLIX: The Front Page is all I saw

TUBI: Here is where a lot of options will be found for the month if you don't mind some commercials. HERE is a link. It looks like 8 of his movies and a documentary.

My library system has a ton, so I plan on looking there if I need a supplemental disc.

 

[Charlie Steiner]

@KarmaPolice interesting choice for director given your disdain for voiceover and Wilder’s consistent use of it. Though Wilder usually only uses it at the start of the film for a quick set-up.

I think my "no covers" take is stronger than anything about voiceover in my old age. What it comes down to is my opinion on voiceover is similar to my stance on GCI. I prefer not to have it in my movie, but both are sometimes a necessary tool and can be used with great results. For example, I can't see Shawshank or Fight Club done without it, and love both those movies. Both can also be used way too much and ruin a movie for me. Here is where I am critical of Scorsese, and why Goodfellas has never fully clicked with me.

I've had to wrestle with the fact that while it can really grate on me, I still love old movies and noirs, The Killing is one of my favorite Kubrick's despite over using it, and I am drawn to Terrace Malick movies. At this point I am way more anti-GCI than I am anti-voiceover.

When I watched The Apartment last night (via a youtube link that had a distorted aspect ratio and made it hard to see everything in the scene), I thought Lemmon's voice-over helped paint his picture before we actually meet him, and it serves as a bit of an additional misdirection for what unfolds. Made him seem detail-oriented and therefore organized, which to me made the chaos of his life that much more 'surprising'.

Regarding Scorsese's use of voice-over, I didn't mind it in Goodfellas but thought it was overdone in Casino.

 

[Andy Dufresne]

And I just looked at the results of the streaming options for people and saw 1 vote for Kanopy, so @Andy Dufresne - you might like that doc if you didn't see it.

When people say they don't have Kanopy - are they saying their library doesn't participate?

 

[Don Quixote]

And I just looked at the results of the streaming options for people and saw 1 vote for Kanopy, so @Andy Dufresne - you might like that doc if you didn't see it.

When people say they don't have Kanopy - are they saying their library doesn't participate?

Yeah, my library does not participate. They did at one point, but dropped it a couple of years ago.

 

[Andy Dufresne]

And I just looked at the results of the streaming options for people and saw 1 vote for Kanopy, so @Andy Dufresne - you might like that doc if you didn't see it.

When people say they don't have Kanopy - are they saying their library doesn't participate?

Yeah, my library does not participate. They did at one point, but dropped it a couple of years ago.

I'd stop paying taxes!

 

[Don Quixote]

And I just looked at the results of the streaming options for people and saw 1 vote for Kanopy, so @Andy Dufresne - you might like that doc if you didn't see it.

When people say they don't have Kanopy - are they saying their library doesn't participate?

Yeah, my library does not participate. They did at one point, but dropped it a couple of years ago.

I'd stop paying taxes!

My library put out a release saying that they increased the price to them from $2/rental to $5/rental. So, got out of budget.

 

[KarmaPolice]

And I just looked at the results of the streaming options for people and saw 1 vote for Kanopy, so @Andy Dufresne - you might like that doc if you didn't see it.

When people say they don't have Kanopy - are they saying their library doesn't participate?

Yeah, my library does not participate. They did at one point, but dropped it a couple of years ago.

I'd stop paying taxes!

My library put out a release saying that they increased the price to them from $2/rental to $5/rental. So, got out of budget.

Wow, I didn't know it was that much for library to host that service. It makes perfect sense though, as it seems the Madison ones do, but the local small town ones don't. Now that I know that, I will probably hardly use that service going forward. I assumed it was more of a/month charge, not based on per rental.

 

[Andy Dufresne]

And I just looked at the results of the streaming options for people and saw 1 vote for Kanopy, so @Andy Dufresne - you might like that doc if you didn't see it.

When people say they don't have Kanopy - are they saying their library doesn't participate?

Yeah, my library does not participate. They did at one point, but dropped it a couple of years ago.

I'd stop paying taxes!

My library put out a release saying that they increased the price to them from $2/rental to $5/rental. So, got out of budget.

Wow, I didn't know it was that much for library to host that service. It makes perfect sense though, as it seems the Madison ones do, but the local small town ones don't. Now that I know that, I will probably hardly use that service going forward. I assumed it was more of a/month charge, not based on per rental.

I didn't know that either. I guess I thought it was a blanket license for libraries. That has to be a money loser for them.

 

[Charlie Steiner]

I'm going to go ahead with my take on The Apartment, as I don't think what I'm going to post will step on anyone's toes.

My focus is actually on the film's inevitable and worthy sequel: Mad Men.

Right off the bat, it has to be noted that per the show's creator Matt Weiner, this film was required viewing for the cast, so I'm not breaking any new ground, just taking the opportunity to call attention to what I think is, despite the critical acclaim it received in its day, one of the top 3-5 underrated TV shows of all time, and at the very least my favorite.

I had seen The Apartment a few years before I saw Mad Men, which I didn't catch during its initial run and probably wouldn't have seen if I hadn't caught covid. During my quarantine, AMC had made the whole series available to stream, and I couldn't get enough of it; even after recovering, I re-watched the entire series at a clip of 1-2 episodes per night for the next two years, getting through the whole series at least a dozen times. If AMC hadn't moved it to their pay service, I'd probably still be watching it.

Toward the end of this binge-watch to end all binge-watches, I realized why I kept going back to it: the depth of the writing and attention to detail. While both The Apartment and Mad Men deal with the the same era and same archetypes, they come to it from different angles to dovetail nicely into each other. Wilder built the world via his own experiences, Weiner built a faithful expansion of Wyler's world, then paid loving homage to that world; quick examples of this are multiple characters that share last names with characters from the film (Peggy Olsen, as well as a Cadillac salesman whose last name is Kirkeby, and one of the supporting characters married to a woman whose maiden name is Baxter), and that he manages to use either the same or similar building where the film's apartment stands as the backdrop for a harrowing scene in which Roger and Joan get mugged.

Mad Men fleshes out Wilder's New York so well and is so packed with references that I had to start taking notes on the ones I didn't know (Mark Rothko being one of the more obvious ones) and getting lost down mulitple rabbit holes to catch up. Plus, Weiner is so well-read that he can't help but drop so many literary and theatrical Easter eggs into the show that it proved embarrassing to me how little I've actually seen and read and how less of it I understood. It's almost as if every detail has its own story to tell that somehow directly speaks to any one of the story, the character, the overall theme of the show, the decade of the 60's itself, etc. Nothing in Mad Men is there by accident, and I mean NOTHING. To borrow from Mad Men's Burt Cooper, Mad Men is a marvelous machine filled with a mesh of levers and gears and springs, like a fine watch, wound tight, always ticking.

Even without Weiner directly crediting The Apartment as inspiration, its fingerprints are still all over the show's first 2-3 seasons; he just wanted us to see how much he loves that movie too.

 

[KarmaPolice]

And I just looked at the results of the streaming options for people and saw 1 vote for Kanopy, so @Andy Dufresne - you might like that doc if you didn't see it.

When people say they don't have Kanopy - are they saying their library doesn't participate?

Yeah, my library does not participate. They did at one point, but dropped it a couple of years ago.

I'd stop paying taxes!

My library put out a release saying that they increased the price to them from $2/rental to $5/rental. So, got out of budget.

Wow, I didn't know it was that much for library to host that service. It makes perfect sense though, as it seems the Madison ones do, but the local small town ones don't. Now that I know that, I will probably hardly use that service going forward. I assumed it was more of a/month charge, not based on per rental.

I didn't know that either. I guess I thought it was a blanket license for libraries. That has to be a money loser for them.

For sure. I guess I will shift more to getting discs through them instead of Kanopy when I can.

 

[Eephus]

I hope access won't hinder talk this month. I looks like the main options for people don't have a ton.

PRIME: The main one I saw for free is The Fortune Cookie. I haven't tried Freevee on there, but it looks like a couple others Kiss Me Stupid and Private Life of Sherlock are on that option. Otherwise, it looked like a lot of the main ones are on there for a $4 rent.

HBOMAX: All I saw was Some Like it Hot

NETFLIX: The Front Page is all I saw

TUBI: Here is where a lot of options will be found for the month if you don't mind some commercials. HERE is a link. It looks like 8 of his movies and a documentary.

My library system has a ton, so I plan on looking there if I need a supplemental disc.

There are a bunch of Wilder and Lubitsch films on YouTube, Vimeo and the Internet Archive. I'll post links to the ones I watch via these methods.

They're of questionable legality but haven't been taken down and the rights owners have probably made their money back over the past 70-80 years.

 

[Keith R]

Interesting choice. Not one I would have considered, though I did like The Apartment. Nevertheless, I'm in

This post interested me. With the bolded did you mean you didn't expect Wilder as a selection, you wouldn't consider it because you don't like his movies besides The Apartment, or something else?

Moreso that there were many, many other directors that would have come to mind first, probably because he was from a long ago era. Not saying it was a bad choice at all.

 

[KarmaPolice]

Interesting choice. Not one I would have considered, though I did like The Apartment. Nevertheless, I'm in

This post interested me. With the bolded did you mean you didn't expect Wilder as a selection, you wouldn't consider it because you don't like his movies besides The Apartment, or something else?

Moreso that there were many, many other directors that would have come to mind first, probably because he was from a long ago era. Not saying it was a bad choice at all.

Gotcha. 80s and I talk a bit behind the scenes and it seems we are on a similar page with our plan going forward. I think the first few will be bigger names to get us used to this format. It helps to start off with directors who have a wide range of options too. After that as we throw out names, plans, and themes it seems we lean the opposite and like the idea of slightly lesser known or seen directors as the main discussion point.

We have a pretty good idea what we are doing for March, April, May, June, July, September, and November so far.

 

[KarmaPolice]

I think how I am going to attack the month is do first 1/2 of the month romance/comedies leading up to Valentines Day then tackle a few dramas after that. Sabrina is one I haven't seen yet, so I think I will start there to cross off an obvious one.

 

[Keith R]

Interesting choice. Not one I would have considered, though I did like The Apartment. Nevertheless, I'm in

This post interested me. With the bolded did you mean you didn't expect Wilder as a selection, you wouldn't consider it because you don't like his movies besides The Apartment, or something else?

Moreso that there were many, many other directors that would have come to mind first, probably because he was from a long ago era. Not saying it was a bad choice at all.

We have a pretty good idea what we are doing for March, April, May, June, July, September, and November so far.

October is noticeably omitted. I would think the debate is between John Carpenter and Wes Craven

 

[KarmaPolice]

Interesting choice. Not one I would have considered, though I did like The Apartment. Nevertheless, I'm in

This post interested me. With the bolded did you mean you didn't expect Wilder as a selection, you wouldn't consider it because you don't like his movies besides The Apartment, or something else?

Moreso that there were many, many other directors that would have come to mind first, probably because he was from a long ago era. Not saying it was a bad choice at all.

We have a pretty good idea what we are doing for March, April, May, June, July, September, and November so far.

October is noticeably omitted. I would think the debate is between John Carpenter and Wes Craven

Eli Roth has a new movie out this year!