The Apartment

5 / 5 stars
(Cert PG)

A welcome opportunity to revisit Billy Wilder's 1960 classic, cowritten with IAL Diamond. Jack Lemmon is the put-upon junior exec in a Manhattan insurance company, who has a shaming secret: he sycophantically tries to butter up his bosses by loaning out his apartment to them for their extra-marital liaisons. Then he realises that one boss is using the pad to have his way with pretty elevator operator Fran, played by Shirley MacLaine, on whom he has a desperate crush. Seen again, what is striking about the movie isn't the romance, or even the comedy, but the shabbiness, pettiness and nastiness of the office politics. The popularity of TV's Mad Men, and the revival of interest in Richard Yates's 1961 novel Revolutionary Road - being filmed by Sam Mendes - means that The Apartment's dyspeptic view is more current than ever.