“Some people take. Some people get took,” Fran Kubelik explains, “And they know they’re getting took and there’s nothing they can do about it.” Upon a recent rewatch, I was struck by how relevant Billy Wilder’s The Apartment still feels nearly 60 years after it’s release. It’s a film about how men in positions of power manipulate those around them, and how these manipulations wreak havoc in the lives of those unfortunate folks who’ve been manipulated. In the wake of recent events that began with the Harvey Weinstein scandal that has grown into a much larger re-evaluation of the patriarchal power structure in the U.S. and around the world, the film’s themes all sound frighteningly familiar. As long as these powerful men are surrounded by those who refuse to stand up to them, whether due to fear or because it’s just easier not to, the cycle of abuse will not be broken. Our first essay under The Cinematropolis‘s late January theme, “Prestige Films: Past & Present” kicks us off by taking a look at how an often forgotten Best Picture winner, The Apartment, is still relevant to the conversations surrounding one of biggest problems in our culture despite debuting more than 50 years ago.
Released in 1960, The Apartment went on to be nominated for ten Academy Awards, winning five overall, including Best Picture. While generally classified as a comedy, the film often seems to transcend genre. In the blink of an eye, the film manages to hop from being laugh out loud hilarious with the help of Wilder’s sharp dialogue and Jack Lemmon’s precise comic timing, to heartbreakingly sad as the film deals with heavier subject matters, including attempted suicide. Wilder’s expert direction somehow maintains all of this without ever losing its tone or confident storytelling drive. The film, co-written by Wilder and his longtime collaborator, I.A.L Diamond, follows C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon), a mid-level employee at a large corporation, who has managed to get in the good graces of his superiors by allowing them to use his apartment when they need a place to get away with their mistresses. Though lending out his apartment for free in the evenings is a major inconvenience and source of frustration, the executives repay his generosity through career advancements as he rises through the ranks of the company at an exceedingly accelerated rate. Through all of this, Baxter longs for the chance to go on a date with the quick-witted elevator girl, Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine).
At the film’s start, Baxter is presented as an overall decent guy, but we learn that the questionable arrangement with his superiors has already been going on for quite some time. Baxter is clearly exasperated, but he continues to allow it. Why? Frankly, it’s just easier that way. He’s a people pleaser and calling out his bosses would just cause trouble for everyone including himself. At least this way, he gets to advance in his career. Plus he justifies it by telling himself that what they do in his apartment isn’t really any of his business anyway. Confrontation is hard, enablement is easy. Sure, C.C. Baxter is a decent guy, but he’s also a part of the problem. He’s not thinking about the women these men are manipulating, he’s only concerned that they leave the key under the mat when they’re finished.
Enter Fran Kubelik. The girl in elevator 19 that always has witty deflection ready for any hopeful suitors who longs to be a typist, but can’t spell. Fran is the woman in the building that all the executives would like to take to C.C. Baxter’s apartment, but she never gives in to their pickup lines and harassment. Fran takes note of Baxter because he’s the only man that treats her with respect every day on the elevator ride to his floor. Alas, Ms. Kubelik is in love with Mr. Sheldrake, the head of the company. The two have been engaging in an on and off again romance in secret because unfortunately, there’s already a Mrs. Sheldrake, therefore they keep their affair hidden by meeting somewhere private, C.C Baxter’s Apartment. Fran doesn’t like being the other woman, but Sheldrake is a master of manipulation. He always finds a way to say exactly what she wants to hear and leads her on in the hope that he will leave his wife for her. A promise he makes over and over but never fulfills. “When you’re in love with a married man, you shouldn’t wear mascara,” she admits at one point. It’s through Fran that Baxter sees the toll that’s been taken on these women.
On Christmas Eve, an argument breaks out between Mr. Sheldrake and Fran. He can’t stay because he needs to be with his wife, or else she’ll suspect something. He leaves her alone in Baxter’s apartment. Fran sees herself stuck in the cycle. She knows she’s “getting took” and in a moment of desperation, she tries to end it all. Baxter finds her unconscious body on his bed later that night with an empty pill bottle beside her. The film doesn’t shy away from the weight of the situation. He calls upon his neighbor, Dr. Dreyfuss, and we hear the doctor forcing her to vomit, we see the two of them marching her back and forth around the apartment for hours to keep her from going to sleep. Mr. Sheldrake distances himself for self-preservation, while Baxter nurses Fran back to health, for no reason other than it is the right thing to do.
Throughout the night, Fran and Baxter form a bond over a game of gin rummy. While she exudes a chipper and breezy spirit, a deep sadness resides within her. Baxter relates. He has a suicide story of his own, involving accidentally shooting himself in the knee. “Why can’t I ever fall in love with someone nice like you?” Fran asks. Baxter shrugs, “That’s the way it crumbles, cookie-wise.” While Baxter manages to contain the situation, he continues to cover for Mr. Sheldrake. He assures her that Sheldrake cares about her, even though he knows for a fact that Sheldrake refused to come check up on her when he was told of Fran’s condition. “Why don’t you grow up, Baxter?” Dr. Dreyfuss inquires after Baxter takes the blame for Fran’s situation, “Be a ‘mensch’! You know what that means? A human being!” Baxter’s a decent guy, but he’s still a part of the problem.
Having satisfied Mr. Sheldrake, Baxter’s stock in the company continues to rise, but something within him has changed. While he initially enjoyed his accelerated momentum, it now felt empty. He puts his head down and tries to push forward, but he can’t shake what he experienced on that Christmas Eve night. When Sheldrake comes to him, attempting to reinstate the status quo, Baxter is forced to confront his place in this manipulative cycle. Just because he isn’t directly involved doesn’t mean he isn’t enabling these men by turning a blind eye. He’s complicit and begins to see that. Though he’ll lose everything in the process, his job, and his apartment, he realizes that the only truly decent thing to do is to break the cycle.
As more stories come to light of how men use their positions of power to take advantage of the women around them, it’s important to recognize how easy it is to enable their behavior. It’s easy to look the other way, to justify our apathy by saying it’s none of our business, or that this is just the way things are. But the fact of the matter is that those who abuse their power won’t stop themselves. The system that allows this abuse must be cut off, and it can only be cut off by those who stand up against it, even though it’s scary or hard. “What’s gotten into you, Baxter?” Sheldrake questions Baxter after his refusal to allow him back into the apartment. “Just following doctor’s orders,” Baxter responds, “I’ve decided to become a ‘mensch’. You know what that means? A human being.” A lesson that many of us could stand to learn today.
