Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Favorite lines from The Apartment



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Dialogue from The Apartment (dir. Billy Wilder, 1960). The screenplay is by Wilder and his longtime collaborator I. A. L. Diamond. Aspiring junior executive C. C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) and elevator operator Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine) are talking. Miss Kubelik lends her compact so that Mr. Baxter can see how he looks in his new hat. She sees his jaunty smile fade:

“What’s the matter?”

“Uh, the mirror. It’s broken.”

“Yes, I know. I like it that way. Makes me look the way I feel.”
To understand why Mr. Baxter’s smile fades, you’ll have to watch.

comments: 2

Chris said...

My favorite lines are all the ones that end in "-wise."

Michael Leddy said...

I love the -wise cracks. That suffix was very much in the air in 1960.