1960 The Apartment
This movie was another cute one (like Marty). Jack Lemmon (very charming) plays the lead, and his character, Baxter, is incredibly likeable. But he's gotten himself into a little situation.. He basically loans out his apartment to executives at his office in exchange for promotions, and the executives use his apartment to have flings. His neighbors assume that it is him with all these women, and he has a bit of a reputation as a "notorious sexpot." When his neighbor, Dr. Dreyfuss, hears music start up, he remarks to his wife, "Mildred! He's at it again." Baxter is in love with Fran (Shirley Maclaine), the girl that runs an elevator in his building. As he tells her, "Miss Kubelik, one doesn't get to be a second administrative assistant around here unless he's a pretty good judge of character, and as far as I'm concerned you're tops. I mean, decency-wise and otherwise-wise." He is hoping to go on a date with her and get to know her better.
Then he finds out that she is having an affair with one of the top executives, Sheldrake, using his apartment. He is devastated, but still stands by her, and cares for her after she has her heart broken by Sheldrake and tries to kill herself. His neighbors, including Doctor Dreyfuss, who saves her life, assume it was Baxter that drove her to attempt suicide. Dreyfuss scolds him, saying, "I don't know what you did to that girl in there - and don't tell me - but it was bound to happen, the way you carry on. Live now, pay later. Diner's Club! Why don't you grow up, Baxter? Be a mensch!" Baxter accepts the blame rather than reveal that Fran was having an affair with a married man.
They bond as Fran convalesces in his apartment, telling him about herself and the affair with Sheldrake, stating that "Some people take, some people get took. And they know they're getting took and there's nothing they can do about it." She muses to Baxter, "Why can't I ever fall in love with someone nice like you?" Poor Baxter, surely asking himself the same question, answers, "That's the way it crumbles... cookie-wise."
After nursing her back to health, he finally stands up to Sheldrake about the situation and quits: "You're not going to bring anybody to my apartment...Especially not Miss Kubelik...Just following doctor's orders. I've decided to become a "mensch". You know what that means? A human being."
And, at long last, he gets the girl.
A happy ending. The acting is great, and I really enjoyed it.
But...
Psycho should have won best picture. One of the most iconic horror films of all time.
Psycho (1960)
"A boy's best friend is his mother." -Psycho
Psycho, I feel, is Hitchcock's greatest movie. A perfect horror film, mystery, and psychological thriller all rolled into one. Bernard Herrmann's score was chillingly ominous.
Of course, nowadays most everyone knows the infamous twist, but back then it was completely unexpected.
Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), the heroine of the story, steals a bunch of money and flees by car towards Fairvale, where her boyfriend lives. On the way, she stops at the Bates Motel to spend the night, and meets the proprietor, Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). At first, Bates seems like a nice, normal guy. There are no other visitors at the motel, and he invites her to have dinner with him. But some things are a little peculiar. Stuffed birds fill his parlor. A woman's voice, Norman identifies her as his mother, can be heard screaming at Norman when he leaves to tell her he is having dinner with a female guest: "No! I tell you no! I won't have you bringing some young girl in for supper! By candlelight, I suppose, in the cheap, erotic fashion of young men with cheap, erotic minds!" Norman tries to apologize for her when returns, saying that "She isn't quite herself today."
And then, there's Norman's heated reaction when Marion Crane suggests that perhaps his ill mother should be put away: "What do you know about caring? Have you ever seen the inside of one of those places? The laughing, and the tears, and those cruel eyes studying you? My mother there? Oh, but she's harmless. She's as harmless as one of those stuffed birds...People always mean well. They cluck their thick tongues, and shake their heads and suggest, oh, so very delicately!...It's not like my mother is a maniac or a raving thing. She just goes a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven't you? " He also observes to her, "You know what I think? I think that we're all in our private traps, clamped in them, and none of us can ever get out. We scratch and we claw, but only at the air, only at each other, and for all of it, we never budge an inch."
Considering Norman's words, Marion decides that she needs to go back home in the morning and make things right. She hops into the shower.
What follows is a scene that I'm sure has made many a woman afraid to shower alone. A figure looms, the shower curtain is pulled back, and only halfway through the movie, our heroine is brutally stabbed to death.
Norman walks in, and cries, " Mother! Oh God, mother! Blood! Blood!"
According to Wikipedia, "Leigh herself was so affected by this scene when she saw it, that she no longer took showers unless she absolutely had to; she would lock all the doors and windows and would leave the bathroom and shower door open. She never realized until she first watched the film "how vulnerable and defenseless one is"."
The rest of the film follows the investigation of Marion's disappearance, by Marion's sister and boyfriend, by a private investigator hired to track down the money, and by the local police.
It culminates in one of the most shocking and climactic scenes of all time, and ends with one of the most memorable soliloquies in movie history:
"It's sad, when a mother has to speak the words that condemn her own son. But I couldn't allow them to believe that I would commit murder. They'll put him away now, as I should have years ago. He was always bad, and in the end he intended to tell them I killed those girls and that man... as if I could do anything but just sit and stare, like one of his stuffed birds. They know I can't move a finger, and I won't. I'll just sit here and be quiet, just in case they do... suspect me. They're probably watching me. Well, let them. Let them see what kind of a person I am. I'm not even going to swat that fly. I hope they are watching... they'll see. They'll see and they'll know, and they'll say, "Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly...""
The Apartment was good, but Psycho is a masterpiece.
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