The Films of Billy Wilder: "Five Graves to Cairo" (1943)

TCM's take on Billy Wilder


3:00am [Comedy] Irma La Douce (1963)
A Parisian policeman gives up everything for the love of a free-living prostitute.
Cast: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Lou Jacobi, Bruce Yarnell Dir: Billy Wilder BW-143 mins, TV-14 [Letterbox] [Close Captioned] [Email Remind Me]

5:30am [Comedy] Apartment, The (1960)
An aspiring executive lets his bosses use his apartment for assignations, only to fall for the big chief's mistress.
Cast: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray, Ray Walston Dir: Billy Wilder BW-125 mins, TV-PG [Letterbox] [Close Captioned] [Email Remind Me]

7:45am [Suspense/Mystery] Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes, The (1970)
The legendary sleuth becomes involved with a mysterious French woman while investigating the Loch Ness monster.
Cast: Robert Stephens, Colin Blakely, Irene Handl, Stanley Holloway Dir: Billy Wilder C-125 mins, TV-14 [Letterbox] [Email Remind Me]

10:00am [Drama] Spirit of St. Louis, The (1957)
Charles Lindbergh risks his life to complete his historic flight from New York to Paris.
Cast: James Stewart, Murray Hamilton, Patricia Smith, Bartlett Robinson Dir: Billy Wilder C-135 mins, TV-G [Letterbox] [Close Captioned] [Email Remind Me]

12:30pm [Comedy] Some Like It Hot (1959)
Two musicians on the run from gangsters masquerade as members of an all-girl band.
Cast: Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, George Raft Dir: Billy Wilder BW-121 mins, TV-PG [Letterbox] [Close Captioned] [Email Remind Me]
2:40pm [Short Film] Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Penelope Featurette (1966)
C-4 mins [Email Remind Me]

2:45pm [Comedy] Kiss Me, Stupid (1965)
A small-town songwriter tries to sell his work to a stranded singing star.
Cast: Dean Martin, Kim Novak, Ray Walston, Felicia Farr Dir: Billy Wilder BW-125 mins, TV-PG [Letterbox] [Close Captioned] [Email Remind Me]

What's On Tonight: GREAT DIRECTORS: BILLY WILDER

5:00pm [Comedy] Fortune Cookie, The (1966)
A crooked lawyer trumps up an insurance case for a cameraman injured at a pro football game.
Cast: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Ron Rich, Cliff Osmond Dir: Billy Wilder BW-126 mins, TV-PG [Letterbox] [Close Captioned] [Email Remind Me]

7:15pm [Crime] Double Indemnity (1944)
An insurance salesman gets seduced into plotting a client's death.
Cast: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Porter Hall Dir: Billy Wilder BW-108 mins, TV-PG [Close Captioned] [Email Remind Me]

9:15pm [Drama] Sunset Boulevard (1950)
A failed screenwriter falls into a mercenary romance with a faded silent-film star.
Cast: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson Dir: Billy Wilder BW-110 mins, TV-PG [Close Captioned] [Email Remind Me]
11:15pm [Documentary] Billy Wilder Speaks (2006)
TCM original documentary on prolific director, writer and producer Billy Wilder.
BW-71 mins, TV-MA [Close Captioned] [Email Remind Me]

12:30am [Comedy] Avanti! (1972)
A man falls in love with the daughter of his fathers longtime mistress.
Cast: Jack Lemmon, Juliet Mills, Clive Revill, Edward Andrews Dir: Billy Wilder C-144 mins, TV-MA

 

"Billy Wilder Speaks" was very good, indeed.

 

I nver watched any of his movies.

He wasnt particulary upset about the commie wich hunts.

 

Which means that his movies are no good?

Does not compute.

 

He had some great ones. Some Like It Hot, Sunset Blvd, Sabrina; The Apartment to a slightly lesser degree.

 

I wish I'd seen Billy Wilder Speaks.

For me, his three best are Ace in the Hole, Sunset Boulevard and Stalag 17.

Interestingly, they were all in the same time period, early 50s.

Though I'm also pretty fond of Witness for the Prosecution.

 

I don't know that I'll call "Witness for the Prosecution" a great movie, but it is tons of fun, and the best adaptation of Christie ever (and it does change the story's ending considerably).

 

Never seen Ace in the Hole, but love Sunset Boulevard and Stalag 17.

 

I once got to spend about 15 minutes with Kirk Douglas (I was very fortunate, I was in the right time and the right place luckily) and I asked him what were some of his favorite movies he starred in. He mentioned "Ace in the Hole" and I asked him why? He said "because Billy Wilder let me play such a bastard."

By the way, I once read that Billy Wilder in his later years lived in an apartment and thought well, gee, I guess he didn't invest his money well from his successful years and didn't end up in a good place financially, despite all his success.

Boy, was I wrong. Very wrong.

Billy Wilder had one of the largest private art collections in the United States. At one point in the 1980s, he sold a PORTION of his art collection for almost 33 MILLION dollars.

Must have been a very nice apartment! I guess he did okay for himself.

BTW, his IMDB biography and trivia section are amazing.
Billy Wilder

 

I keep needing to remind myself to pickup Sunset Blvd and Stalag 17 one of these days. Spending a few grand to remodel my kitchen might put that on hold.

Those movies greatness have one thing in common besides Wilder, William Holden. Perhaps the most underrated actor in history.

 

Agreed about Holden. One of the greats. He's terrific in Picnic, my favorite film from the 50s (though not a Wilder film, so let me get back on-topic!)

Wilder's Some Like it Hot is the funniest movie of the 50s, and one of the all-time great movies, period!

 

A very interesting discussion of "Double Indemnity"

 

I remember watching Double Indemnity in Film School. It was one of few films that I didn't find heavy-handed and pretentious. Some Like it Hot is one of my favorite movies of all time. And how can you not love Sunset Boulevard.

 

"The Lost Weekend" is also very good.

 

Yeah, it is. Milland's performance is better than you'd expect.

 

On TCM today:

1:00pm [Comedy] Fortune Cookie, The (1966)
A crooked lawyer trumps up an insurance case for a cameraman injured at a pro football game.
Cast: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Ron Rich, Cliff Osmond Dir: Billy Wilder BW-126 mins, TV-PG [Letterbox] [Close Captioned] [Email Remind Me]


Matthau is great; Lemmon is a moist chump.

 

10:15 PM Love In The Afternoon (1957)

An aging American tycoon overcomes his inhibitions to court a young Parisian. Cast: Gary Cooper, Audrey Hepburn, Maurice Chevalier. Dir: Billy Wilder. BW-130 mins, TV-G, CC, Letterbox Format

Cooper is very dull, and Hepburn is not.

 

I watched this again to see if I was wrong the first time.

I wasn't. Robert Osborne introduced the film by saying Wilder had written it for Cary Grant, and bingo! that's the problem. I could just 'hear' Grant saying the lines. The role of Frank Flannagan requires someone with comedy technique, and Cooper hasn't any; he's the most naturalistic of actors, with a miniscule range. He's 28 years older than Hepburn (who was 29 at the time), and looks every minute of it.

And possibly the role makes him uncomfortable; he was a notorious philanderer in real life, and had recently reunited with his wife after a separation. In any case, at no point does he work in the role, particularly because there's no chemistry with Hepburn; and the rest of the film doesn't recover from it.

Too bad, because the script is funny, Hepburn and Chevalier make a surprisingly effective and touching father and daughter team, and with Grant (with whom Hepburn *did* have chemistry, to judge by "Charade"), this might have been judged one of Wilder's great films.

 

Agreed. Coop is the only problem with the film - but he's a rather major one. I still found it to be very enjoyable though, mainly due to Hepburn.

 

Yes, she's very charming. This movie was supposedly Wilder's tribute to Ernst Lubitsch, and it *does* have that kind of aura. But...Cooper. Too bad.

 

5:30 PM Irma La Douce (1963)
A Parisian policeman gives up everything for the love of a free-living prostitute. Cast: Shirley MacLaine, Jack Lemmon, Lou Jacobi. Dir: Billy Wilder. BW-143 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

This Wilder film also suffers from miscasting, in this case, Shirley MacLaine in the title role. She's played plenty of ladies of the evening, but this role was intended for Marilyn Monroe. Nuff said. Lemmon plays a charmless doofus. He is not fun to watch.

 

On November 6:

3:30 PM Spirit of St. Louis, The (1957)
Charles Lindbergh risks his life to complete his historic flight from New York to Paris. Cast: James Stewart, Murray Hamilton, Patricia Smith. Dir: Billy Wilder. C-135 mins, TV-G, CC, Letterbox Format


A fearsome flop on release.

 

It's not awful, but it never really works. Stewart is way, way, way too old, for starters. And it just... is what it is. Wilder has nothing to say. It's almost as if he doesn't care. And his use of CinemaScope leaves a bit to be desired.

 

"Five Graves To Cairo" (1943) dir. Billy Wilder, starring Franchot Tone, Anne Baxter and Erich von Stroheim. Recorded off TCM.

Considering that this is only Wilder's second Hollywood directing job (the rather minor "The Major and the Minor" was the first), it's really technically accomplished, though you don't hear much about it. It has a really striking opening sequence, in which a tank lurches through the desert, with its turret gunner hanging half way out of it, dead. As the tank lumbers along, it jerks one of its interior crew awake (they have been overcome by fumes). He stumbles up into the air, and falls out of the tank when it hits something. He walks forever and comes across an old British-style hotel in a coastal Egyptian village.

That's the first ten minutes. For about another half hour, the film keeps up the pace, and then things get a bit dicey. The central conceit--the 'five graves--is essentially silly, unless you can accept that Rommel was rushing about Egypt in 1937 disguised as an archeologist. Yeah, sure, whatever.

This wasn't designed as a A production, though, judging from the cast alone. And the casting is a bit problematic. Franchot Tone is playing a Brit, but his refined American accent isn't too jarring. He's perfectly good, but not too interesting; and his voice kept reminding me of someone else (Gary Merrill, of all people). But you can see why he wasn't a Great Big Star. Anne Baxter is an actress I don't like in unsympathetic roles, in which she hams it up relentlessly. I was surprised by her restraint here. Her accent--she playing a Frenchwomen--isn't too French, but is at least consistent. I'm guessing Wilder took her in hand.

And then there's von Stroheim. *His* American accent is not refined, and as soon as I heard it, I thought that he sounded like Jackie Oakie in "The Great Dictator". That is, a parody. This effect is not consistent, but it does take you out of the movie for a minute on more than one occasion.

Wilder also wrote this movie, and his touches are everywhere. I especially like Bramble's dog tags, which I expected would used as a plot device to betray him. Not at all, and I like misdirection.

 

I liked it quite a bit. Tone can be effective at times, but he was never really the leading man type (I think the best performance I saw from him was Advise and Consent, many years later.)