The Apartment

There's at least two movies by this name, but we're talking here of the older oneⁱ with a very young Lemmon before starting a relationship with Matthau and a completely delicious MacLaine.

The premise - dubious as it may seem to sane people living in sane sexual arrangements - is that a lot of people were at some point in history so sexually & socially frustrated that they'd be begging off workplace inferiors the favour of using their apartments. You know how highschoolers beg cars off their parents ? Same principle, except completely out of place. Why not just take the broads to a hotel ? Why not rent an apartment specifically for the purpose of having on hand to take dames there ? Why not take them to Central Park, or Grand Central Station for that matter, tie them nude to a pole and fuck them senseless for the benefit of anyone passing by ? Pause. Crickets. No answers. Visual aids :

It can be done.

On the other hand you could claim there's some advantage to the universal noobish naivite in amorous matters cca 1960. The guy awkwardly confesses to the girl that he's snooped through her insurance files and as such knows where she lives and with whom, her height weight and social security number, and also that she's had apendicitis. In response she giggles flatteredly. Imagine saying that to some girl you were trying to pick up today, just for the hell of it. And I quite literally mean hell of it.

Other than that the story's the usual bore. Married guy won't divorce, lonely girl is lonely, hundred bucks is a hundred bucks, happy end is the only end to have and so forth. Quite honestly I have no idea why anyone'd have bothered to live in the '60s. I guess they must have imagined they have no choice or something.

1. The Apartment, 1960, by Billy Wilder, with Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine. [↩]