| Guide Picks - Top Five Billy Wilder Comedy Movies | |||||
| A career change in the form of Adolf Hitler plunged Billy Wilder onto American soil in 1933. Speaking little English, he soon embarked on a truly distinguished Hollywood canon. Although he crafted comedy as a screenwriter ("Ball of Fire," "Ninotchka") and made superior dramas ("Sunset Boulevard," "Double Indemnity"), it's his tangy, triple-threat treats as a writer, producer, and director we salute. | |||||
| 1) "Some
Like It Hot" (1959) The American Film Institute's #14 Top American Film and #1 Funniest American Movie of All Time. Funniest? No way, but this farce is certainly a slam-dunk. Fleeing blood-thirsty mobsters, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis pose as women in an all-girl band, which causes romantic complications with the incandescent Marilyn Monroe and dim bulb Joe E. Brown, who delivers the greatest closing line ever.
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| 2) "The
Apartment" (1960) An odd, anti-romantic drama with comic relief. A lovesick schnook (Jack Lemmon) is coerced into a sea of corporate immorality, losing his self-respect and the girl. That theme song and Shirley MacLaine are still ideals. Ten Oscar nominations and five wins, Wilder grabbed Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay (with I.A.L. Diamond). The Writers Guild of America declared, "Best Written American Comedy."
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| 3) "Sabrina"
(1954) Though less frenetic than typical Wilder comedies, such as "Kiss Me, Stupid" (1964), "One, Two, Three" (1961), and "The Front Page" (1974), this Cinderella story is one of Hollywood's enduring concoctions. Humphrey Bogart, William Holden, and Audrey Hepburn frolic in the romantic triangle of a tycoon, a playboy, and the chauffeur's daughter. Remade in 1995 with Harrison Ford.
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| 4) "The
Seven Year Itch" (1955) The wife away, a lonely husband (Tommy Ewell) toys with white-hot fire (Marilyn Monroe). "Writer-director Wilder had to skirt censorship issues in adapting George Axelrod's Broadway play, and the results are much tamer than the original (though still entertaining)," says Leonard Maltin. The quintessential Marilyn image comes from this film: a gush of air from a subway grating billows up her dress.
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| 5) "The
Fortune Cookie" (1966) The first screen coupling of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau (cast over Frank Sinatra and Jackie Gleason on Lemmon's insistence) permeates the tale of a shyster lawyer and his brother-in-law's wild insurance scam. Matthau, who suffered a heart attack during the shoot, won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award. Wilder and Diamond were nominated for original script.
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| --Mike Durrett |
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