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By PAUL BRENNER
MGM Home Entertainment has
boxed a collection of nine Billy Wilder films
featuring writer-director Wilder at his most
satiric and acerbic. The collection charts the
course of Wilder's career from his triumphant
heights -- "Witness For the Prosecution," "Some
Like It Hot," "The Apartment," "One, Two, Three,"
"Irma La Douce" -- to his falling off and
increasing marginalization from the Hollywood
establishment in the 1960s -- "Kiss Me Stupid,"
"The Fortune Cookie," "The Private Life of
Sherlock Holmes," "Avanti!" Wilder's independence
in signing with The Mirisch Corporation in 1957
made Wilder a ton of money and allowed him to bask
in the glow of praise and Oscar nominations.
"Witness for the Prosecution," featuring an
uproarious performance from Charles Laughton, is
perhaps his last continental flavored bon-bon
before plunging for the rest of his career into
contemporary sarcasm.
"Some Like It Hot" is a true American comedy
classic, with brilliant performances and dialogue
that pops like champagne corks.
"The Apartment" was Wilder's big Oscar winner,
with Jack Lemmon's archetypical performance and a
thoroughly nasty turn by Fred MacMurray. It is
also a very moving film about two people who
become each other's life raft in a world of stark,
insensitive cruelty. It is also a great
alternative Christmas film.
"One, Two, Three" is Wilder's over-amped and arch
look at the Cold War, with Cagney at his most
caffeinated and unleashed performances.
"Irma La Douce" puts a storybook romantic spin on
Wilder's cynicism and gave Wilder one of his
biggest box office successes. Now at the top of
the heap, Wilder's Mirisch connection also set him
apart from the tarnishing Hollywood studios and
granted him greater independence. But when both
the studios and the Mirisch brothers crashed and
burned in the 1960s, so did Wilder, giving his
later films less of a celebrity gloss and more of
a melancholy, curdled romanticism.
"Kiss me Stupid" was Wilder's first spectacular
flop. The film's, at the time, controversial sex
play, was considered crass and heartless. But from
the perspective of 2003, "Kiss Me Stupid" has
grown charm and sweet innocence and without the
smarminess of other sex comedies of a more recent
vintage.
"The Fortune Cookie" garnered Walter Matthau his
Oscar and still stands as Wilder at his most
sardonic and critical.
"The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" is Wilder's
most personal film, with the famed detective in
decline posing as stand in for the director.
"Avanti!" is Wilder's goosiest film, with its
sweet romance giving hope to all cynics at heart.
This collection could also be called The I.A.L.
Diamond Collection in honor of Wilder's
co-screenwriter for most of the films here. Except
for "Love in the Afternoon" (their first
collaboration, not represented here) and "Witness
for the Prosecution" (which Wilder wrote with
Harry Kurnitz), these films represents most of the
Wilder-Diamond canon ("Fedora" and "The Front
Page" came later).
It would have been nice if MGM could have
shoehorned "Fedora" into the mix but, like the man
said, "Nobody's perfect." |
