Billy Wilder

Just looked and couldn't really find any thread on Billy Wilder. Some like it Hot and Sunset Boulevard are two great films, and though I haven't seen any more than that it's got me wondering what other films I should go to next.

Billy Wilder has a pretty high percentage. Also among his best:

The Apartment

Double Indemnity

Witness for the Prosecution

Lost Weekend

Sabrina

Staleg 17

The Seven Year itch

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I picked up a copy of The Lost Weekend a few days ago. I've been having quite the time trying to find anything else though (I'm surprised I even found The Lost Weekend at FYE).

Double Indemnity is on youtube.

Just got done watching Double Indemnity and it is indeed a masterpiece. I'd place it as #2 on Mr. Wilder's list.

Wilder rankings thus far:

1. Some like it Hot
2. Double Indemnity
3. Sunset Boulevard
4. The Apartment
5. Lost Weekend

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I'll have to take a look at that one Mark.

Do that! Now that I think about, planet news really needs to watch it since it's about "Coca Cola Colonialism". Sample dialogue: "Capitalism is like a dead herring in the moonlight. It shines but it stinks!"

I thought One Two Three was very unfunny. It has that terrible Arlene Francis who shouldn't have taken a break from What's My Line to make it.

Watch The Fortune Cookie instead. That has the performance that made Walter Matthau a star and his first teaming with Jack Lemmon. Not perfect, but funny until the end.

Contrarian.

Holden, where are you to contradict will?

The Apartment is one I love from the man - saw his grave stone in Los Angeles a few years back and took a photo, has the most wonderful line on it: I'm a writer, but then nobody's perfect.

Billy Wilder is someone I've only really discovered in the last year or two, and he is quickly becoming one of my absolute favourite directors, and indeed writers. So far of his films I love Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard and Seven Year Itch. Also really liked Some Like It Hot and The Apartment. The only one that I didn't really get into was the Fortune Cookie for some reason.

I've also got a whole bunch of his work still to watch that I've ever taped or blind bought - Avanti, Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Stalag 17, Five Graves to Cairo, Lost Weekend and The Major and the Minor

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Updated Wilder Rankings:

1. Some like it Hot
2. Double Indemnity
3. Stalag 17
4. Sunset Boulevard
5. The Apartment
6. Lost Weekend

Great writer-director. When I was teaching media, I picked him as one of our directors. (I picked 5 to talk about.)

I have a funny story:

I was showing Some Like it Hot to my 8th grade Media class. We had studied a bit about Wilder and I was showing the film. I had this one student who was so ADHD, he was one big pain in the ass. He never listened; he failed everything.

We're watching this movie, and we get to the scene in the hotel room where Lemmon or Curtis (can't remember which) tears off his wig and yells at the other one. We're talking at least 20 minutes into the movie.

This kid yells out, "you mean they're guys?"

He had been there the entire time. The entire class moaned and yelled at him. I just shook my head.

That's middle school for ya.

A great and criminally neglected Wilder film is Ace in the Hole (also sometimes known as The Big Carnival). It's an extremely dark comedy about the unscrupulousness of newspaper reporting and features a sizzling performance from Kirk Douglass as a big-time reporter who's wound up on a local paper and is determined to get back to the top by any means necessary. Well worth a look if you get the chance.

I'd like to say I think Stalag 17 is a bit underrated

I don't think it is a comedy.

I'm the contrarian?
You're the guy who gave just two and a half stars to The Long Goodbye and Bigger Than Life.

Both of which are helluva lot better than One Two Three.

The Major and the Minor -
Five Graves to Cairo -
Double Indemnity -
The Lost Weekend -
The Emperor Waltz -
A Foreign Affair - +
Sunset Blvd. -
Ace in the Hole -
Stalag 17 - +
Sabrina - +
The Seven Year Itch -
The Spirit of St. Louis -
Love in the Afternoon - +
Witness For the Prosecution - -
Some Like It Hot -
The Apartment - +
One, Two, Three - +
Irma La Douce -
Kiss Me, Stupid -
The Fortune Cookie -
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes -
Avanti! -
The Front Page -
Fedora -
Buddy Buddy -

I still haven't got round to watching Sabrina.