Billy Wilder’s 1960 Best Picture winner is one of those movie landmarks where you can see America growing up and smelling the coffee. It’s a bitter, pungent film – a ‘comedy’ in name only – about “the takers and the ones who get took”. Jack Lemmon is CC Baxter, an insurance clerk at Consolidated Life. His bachelor pad has a revolving door – only he’s never in it, and the executives taking advantage of his hospitality are married men who dangle a promotion in front of Baxter just as surely as they promise the good life to the secretaries they bring there. In her career-best role, Shirley MacLaine is Fran Kubelik, the elevator girl who hits rock bottom on Christmas Eve. Razor-sharp writing; dark, high--contrast visuals; and indelible performances… this classic still holds true.
Verdict: NOVERDICT
