Billy Wilder in the 1950's

The 1950's was when Billy Wilder ascended from great director to one of the true masters of cinema. Now I have to say that statement is made with a bit of an asterik as I've yet to see The Spirit of St. Louis (I really should, it's Wilder's only collaboration with James Stewart), and Love in the Afternoon, yet even if these two were absolute disasters I'd still consider this decade to be a marvelous achievement, in which his body of work was only surpassed by Alfred Hitchcock and Akira Kurosawa.

Having said that, there's two films I want to write most thoroughly about in particular (if you want to skip to them, scroll down), so I'll get the others out of the way first. One example of an overlooked masterpiece in Wilder's filmmography, Ace in the Hole, was very oddly received with a lukewarm response by critics and poor reception by audiences, based on the box office. The story of a down-on-his-luck but ambitious reporter Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas) who exploits a situation of a man trapped in a cave collapse for media attention, is an excellent satire on media exploitation. Its blunt approach to depicting the way in which news reporters and the use of media circus to strike up publicity, is particularly fascinating as Wilder directs it with such extreme cynicism, expertly set against the hot, harsh Arizona sun and depicting the arc of Tatum as essentially an immoral man who grows morals as the world gradually reveals its deprivation around him. Douglas, by the way, is excellent, and it's a terrible shame he never worked with Wilder again after this (I assume the poor box office performance put both of them off) as his smarmy charismatic style brought so much flavour to his potentially obnoxious role. I thoroughly enjoy every moment of this excellent news procedural film of sorts, and though it may arguably be a bit on-the-nose at certain points, Wilder knows how to restrain these into a powerful exploration of morality.

In contrast to the dark, brooding tone of Ace in the Hole, Wilder's Sabrina was quite the departure from his recent string of noir works. A nice romantic comedy you can pretty much guess the end of before the halfway point, but by that point you're probably quite enjoying yourself, you don't really care all that much. Audrey Hepburn is as delightful and charming as ever, not on Roman Holiday level perhaps but few performances ever are, as the titular daughter of a chauffer who has been long in love with the youngest son of her father's employer's family, David Larrabe (William Holden), goes away to culinary school for two years and comes back an attractive, sophisticated lady who casts a soon-to-be-married David under her spell. This leads his brother Linus (Humphrey Bogart) to intervene to prevent disaster. Out of the lead trio, Holden is probably the least impressive (it's a far cry from his two other Wilder leading roles), but he's still fine as the lively and uncouth sleazeball, Hepburn is great though as aforementioned but the biggest surprise is Bogart, who cast against type as a workaholic humourless stiff who gradually opens up a bit. The costume design here is particularly impressive, and though it's not a barrel of laughs it's a nice enough watch.

Wilder's first collaboration with Marilyn Monroe was another sweet romantic comedy, The Seven Year Itch. This is one of his most iconic films but I can't say that it's one of my absolute favourites, it's a bit too slight for that. I do however prefer it slightly to Sabrina because it's got a more cinematic flair to its depiction of 'man falls for gorgeous woman' arc, here the married, good-natured but neurotic Richard Sherman (Tom Ewell, the go-to man for this sort of schmuck) who while his wife and son are holidaying in Maine, falls for the charm of a vivacious young blonde played by none other than Ms Monroe. The film kind of reminds me of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (the 1947 version, more specifically) in its utilization of fantasy sequences for comical effect and to represent the delusions of Sherman having the young lady fall for his supposed 'charms'. Beyond that it's pretty much just the story of a man who should really come to his senses, but it's an enjoyable one at that. I would have liked to seen a darker exploration of this sort of material by Wilder (sort of a subversive rom-com tinged with hints of Double Indemnity, methinks), but as it stands it's a good film with yes, that one very iconic image above.

Witness for the Prosecution is a film I feel I've never quite given sufficient credit to. Part of it is due to watching Anatomy of a Murder before this, which I feel is the defining masterpiece of courtroom dramas, well besides To Kill a Mockingbird. Another part is that also watching the 1982 television movie adaptation of the Agatha Christie source material, may have made me take for granted the excellent qualities of the original since that version, which stars Ralph Richardson (one of my favourite British actors of all-time) as Sir Wilfrid the protagonist, Deborah Kerr (my favourite actress of all-time) as Mrs Plimsoll, and other actors I really like, like Donald Pleasance, Diana Rigg, Wendy Hiller etc.

Still all this put aside, this is a pretty great courtroom drama all in all, with a bit of a unique spin on the British sensibilities of it through the casting of Marlene Dietrich in an atypical role as theaccused man's wife, in a noir film, where she'd usually be playing the femme fatale. As Sir Wilfrid Robards, The great Charles Laughton takes a different approach to Richardson (I'll say no more at this point), but his delightfully astute, mischevous, charismatic portrayal of Robards in and out of the courtroom, whether delivering some incisive cross-examination or bickering with his nurse (his offscreen wife Elsa Lancaster). He amplifies with his entertaining performance the dark case surrounding the case of Leonard Vole (Tyrone Power, surprisingly good) murdering a rich widow, one which results in a great deal of conflict and drama even when a verdict is reached. The film is mostly just a fun ride through various red herrings and mysteries, and has one pretty good twist that is earnt by the performance behind it.

Then there's what a lot of people consider Wilder's best comedy, Some Like it Hot. I'd disagree but that's not to say I dislike it, not at all, in fact I quite love it. The film's buddy comedy and men in drag tropes, surrounding the story of two musicians (played by Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis) who on the run from gangsters, fall in with an all-female band dressed as women. Now I'll get one criticism I've heard of the film out of the way first in that Lemmon and Curtis aren't terribly convincing women, even for a comedy it's not quite Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie. Well I don't think it matters all that much, they're meant to be men playing women within the context of the film.  Lemmon is particularly funny in playing up how his Joe's fussy personality fits in with his 'Josephine' guise and his interactions with a lusty millionaire played delightfully by Joe E. Brown, as they tango their way to true love, are great. Curtis is technically a little overshadowed in his scenes with Lemmon but the scenes where he charms Monroe with another guise, a Cary Grant-esque millionaire (and doing an impression of Grant to boot), are probably some of my favourite scenes of the film. The screwball dialogue here is well-written, the set design of the hotel is lavish and nice, the gangster elements are handled with the right amount of ridiculous high comedy, and though I don't think it's exactly Wilder's most flourishing example of direction he certainly does a great job with the chaotic finale.

Now for the climactic bits:

Right; now I like to love all these films, but out of Wilder's 1950's output, two films stand out to me in particular: Sunset Boulevard and Stalag 17. They both star William Holden as a cynic (though that's not to diminish his performance in either, as you'll see), and that's about all the obvious similarities they share. It's testament to Wilder's mastery as a director that in the span of three years he could craft two such incredibly different masterpieces.

Sunset Boulevard is probably Wilder's most acclaimed film of all-time; in terms of success at the Oscars it was on par with the later The Apartment and the critical reception was almost unanimously beloved by critics, as well as being a moderate box-office success, all of which is quite impressive due to a number of factors. It has a fantastic script of course, but its dark, unrelenting depiction of the trappings of Hollywood and the temperance of fame made it quite the risky venture for Wilder and fellow screenwriters Charles Brackett and D.M. Marshman Jr.. In addition the bleak, unsparing, even ghoulish direction of Wilder of this Hollywood tale into a film noir, bordering on horror in certain scenes (that frikkin' monkey), and no casting of big leads (Holden was just a moderately known star, Gloria Swanson was a silent film actress who hadn't been in a motion picture for over a decade), make this a surprisingly (in retrospect) unlikely success.


Well what's it all about then? Well for those of you who've either seen the film, or seen the musical adaptation (starring Glenn Close, I'm still irked I didn't get a chance to see it), you'll know it's the intimate tale of the relationship between a struggling screenwriter Joe Gillis (Holden) who finds refuge, employment, luxury and maybe something more at the household of past-her-prime silent film star Norma Desmond. Things soon spiral out of control as Joe's job as a script doctor soon extends to confidant and potential lover, and in classic Wilder fashion the darkness is peppered with hints of the light, in the form of Gillis' burgeoning relationship with Betty Schaefer (Nancy Olson) a young script reader, and the audience is gradually drawn into the exact how and why Gillis is found dead at the start of the film.

The film's opening is masterful. I can't even describe how well with the score, the shot of the 'Sunset Boulevard' sign, we get an audio and visual impress of how things are going to proceed. Then there's Holden's narration, tricking you into thinking this is some gumshoe, tough detective who's made his way out of another gritty case and has lived to tell the tale of a dead man, 'nobody important'...till we realise the dead fellow is Gillis, face down in a pool he'd always wanted, the poor dope. It's an ingeniously subversive way to open the film, and certainly far better than some of the previous ideas thrown around like having Gillis' corpse rise from the dead in a morgue to tell his life story to some other corpses (it was actually filmed and we were nearly robbed of one of the finest film openings of all-time).

I'll talk more about Holden soon, but for the time-being let us revel in the exquisite, over-the-top yet somehow incredibly haunting and realistic portrayal of a true diva by Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond. She has some of the greatest lines in film history to deliver (with 'I am big. It's the pictures that got small' being a particularly iconic one) and she does so with thunderous aplomb. She gives one of the all-time great performances, displayed particularly well in scenes where Wilder's directorial choices (the casting of silent movie stars like Buster Keaton in the card game scene, Cecil B. Demille, the home cinema scene, the 'party' scene) match perfectly with his leading lady. It all culminates in one of the all-time great film conclusions which I'll put here too.

As for Stalag 17? Well I've realised I'll have almost too much to say on that front...so I'll leave it to a sepearate blog post, to be discussed with another extremely underrated war film from 1998.

1. Stalag 17 (5/5)
2. Sunset Boulevard (5/5)
3. Ace in the Hole (5/5)
4. Witness for the Prosecution (5/5)
5. Some Like It Hot (4.5/5)
6. The Seven Year Itch (4/5)
7. Sabrina (4/5)