Well… Nobody’s Perfect! The Career of Billy Wilder. (Part 6)

In 1963 Wilder was now 57 years old and had been directing in Hollywood for over 20 years and had directed 17 motion pictures and had sold something like $1.9b (adjusted for inflation) in cinema tickets.

Up until this point in his career he had directed 17 Hollywood movies,

70% of his films had been profitable and 60% of films that were profitable were smash hit blockbusters financially, 40% of the films he had made have been Listed in the National Film Registry due to being  selected for historical, cultural, and aesthetic contributions to American Cinema and his mantelpiece was crowded with silverware and statutes including six Oscars.

Through contemporary eyes his first 17 movies have been reappraised by critics and film fans and 8 of his films,

These are now held up as some of the best examples of film making ever. The man was a total genius, BUT his career does sharply tail off after 1963, I'm not being mean I'm just telling the truth.   

 If you have ever wondered why Tarantino has this thing about retiring and wanting to leave a great filmography, Wilder is a good case study to why this is possibly a good idea. 

"Irma la Douce"  (1963)

Based on a 1956 stage musical (But Wilder removed the songs) The film is notable because it reunited Jack Lemmon and Shirley Maclaine and Maclaine is utterly charming in this. The film has a great look but it's look is one of a musical but it has no songs so it has a strange tone and while the movie is watchable lots of the jokes fall flat and most of its charm is in its heightened almost cartoonish design and fab costumes. I would say it's worth a watch but it is not top ten Wilder.

It was a hit at the time taking $25.2 Million against a production budget of $5m. 

"Kiss Me, Stupid" (1964)

Based on a play by Anna Bonacci this is a sex comedy produced and directed by Billy Wilder, and starring Dean Martin, Kim Novak and Ray Walston.  a review at the time of release said, "pitifully unfunny" and "obvious, plodding, short on laughs and performances and long on vulgarity." It was made for $3.5m and grossed $5m.

I have not seen this and I am in no hurry to do so to be honest. 

"The Fortune Cookie" (1966)

The Fortune Cookie (UK title "Meet Whiplash Willie") is a black comedy directed, produced and co-written by Billy Wilder. The film centres around Walter Matthau's character William H. "Whiplash Willie" Gingrich who is a shyster ambulance chasing lawyer who attempts to capitalise on a minor workplace accident sustained by his friend Harold "Harry" Hinkle played by Jack Lemmon. It's most notable for being the first film which paired up Jack Lemmon with Walter Matthau. 

Wilder was mindful of costs and famously he found black & white photography more straight forward but by 1966 it felt like skimping out to be honest.

When people think of an early film starring Lemon & Matthau people think of the gloriously funny black comedy "The Odd Couple" (1968) which was filmed in colour! but had nothing to do with Wilder. 

One of the reasons this film slightly lacks magic is that during filming Matthau (46) suffered a massive heart attack and the production had to shut down and be on pause for five months and when Matthau returned to work he had just quit a 60 cigarette a day habit cold turkey.    

Matthau went on to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Whiplash Willie. 

Pursuing a new healthier lifestyle Matthau had been seriously injured in a bicycle accident but still showed up to the Oscars and was there to except his award on the night, on the Oscar telecast he called out and scolded actors who had not attended the ceremony, especially the other major award winners that night: Paul Scofield, Elizabeth Taylor & Sandy Dennis.

"The Fortune Cookie" (1966) Received mixed reviews on release the 125m runtime was flagged as a negative. 

It did make money taking $6.3m against a budget of $3.7m

Billy's next film is one of my favorite Wilder films which is weird because I am a big Sherlock Holmes fan and the film is not popular amongst the "Sherlockian" community and it is not thought of as top tier Wilder. I find it quite moving and funny with a sensitive and fresh take on Holmes and Watson and just enough silliness to make me chuckle and it has Christopher Lee in it.  

Robert Stephens is wonderful in the role of Holmes and Colin Blakely gives us a youthful and intelligent Watson who is tragically too often portrayed as a bumbling old man in movies. 

Wilder was a lifelong fan of Conan Doyle's Sherlock stories and he ruffled a few feathers by exploring the much eluded to repressed homosexuality that some perceive to exist between the two characters, stating 

"I should have been more daring. I have this theory. I wanted to have Holmes homosexual and not admitting it to anyone, including maybe even himself. The burden of keeping it secret was the reason he took dope." Film includes a line said by Holmes when refers to himself as  

"not a whole-hearted admirer of womankind", Sherlock also says Watson is "being presumptuous" by assuming there have been women in his life.

Mark Gatiss called The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes "the film that changed his life" for this reason: "It's a fantastically melancholy film. The relationship between Sherlock and Watson is treated beautifully; Sherlock effectively falls in love with him in the film, but it's so desperately unspoken."

"Avanti!" (1972)

This is an American/Italian international co-production directed by Billy Wilder, and starring Jack Lemmon and Juliet Mills. It's based on a 1968 Broadway play written by Samuel A. Taylor adapted for the screen by Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond.

The film follows a businessman attempting to retrieve the body of his dead father from Italy.

COMEDY!  Lemmon won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for this.

Critics were very lukewarm on this film with the general vibe being "intermittently funny" and "over-long." clocking in at two hours and twenty minutes. It was a flop at the box office. 

So sad that the man who brought us "The Apartment" with its near perfect screenplay that so  beautifully danced between drama and comedy that it made you laugh and broke your heart is now making inconsistent movies that drag.  

"The Front Page" (1974)

A black comedy-drama directed by Billy Wilder, based on Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's 1928 play of the same name, Screenplay by Billy Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond, Wilder reunited the double act Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.

This film is fine and watchable mainly due to Matthau and his chemistry on screen with Lemmon. It made money at the Box Office taking $15 million against a $4 million budget but it hasn't stood the test of time. 

The bigger picture is that "His Girl Friday" (1940) directed by Howard Hawks was adapted from the same source material, The 1940 movie changed one of the characters to a female and is a fast paced screwball comedy famous for its rapid-fire repartee and overlapping dialogue and it is held up as an archetype of the screwball comedy genre and is celebrated by film fans, directors and actors... why did it need a less funny remake?

"Fedora" (1978)

without a doubt this film is Wilder reliving "Sunset Boulevard" (1950) It opens establishing one of the main characters has died and we get a narration from actor Willam Holden (who played screen writer "Joe Gillis" in "Sunset Boulevard" when he was 32) then it flashes back. In this Holden (now 60) is playing "Barry Detweller" a movie producer... the Detweller character is pursuing an ageing Hollywood actress who is living a reclusive life in a big house with an overbearing strict servant... the script is littered with barbed jibes mocking Hollywood, Don't get me wrong this is not a remake, but Wilder is undoubtedly riffing on past glories. A lot of the humour is broad and falls flat and it does feel like a retread dressed up as a mystery but the "Mystery" aspect is not very mysterious. It did make me smile seeing Henry Fonda and Michael York's cameos (playing themselves)

There is a good film somewhere in there... but it is bloated and lacks the charm of Wilder's earlier work.

It was not a success at the Box Office. 

"Buddy Buddy" (1981)

This film is based on Francis Veber's play "Le contrat" and Édouard Molinaro's film "L'emmerdeur". Billy Wilder directed and co-wrote "Buddy Buddy" with long time writing partner I. A. L. Diamond, Wilder again cast Jack Lemmon & Walter Matthau but that was not enough, it was devastated by critics Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, stated,

"This movie is appalling. It made me want to rub my eyes. Was it possible that the great Billy Wilder ... could possibly have made a film this bad? Buddy Buddy is very bad."

Eberts TV sidekick Gene Siskel named it as the worst film of 1981.

Believe it or not the movie bombed at the Box Office! 

It was also the final film directed and written by Billy Wilder.

Years later Wilder reflected on the film saying, 

"In this Donner Pass expedition known as Hollywood, many fall by the wayside. People eat people. Very few make it. I've been doing it now for over 50 years."

Wilder had a point here! he had a 50 year career in the cut throat world of Hollywood and even with later flops he did have a great batting average!

But it is known that Wilder did not like "Buddy Buddy" and he realised he should retire from directing motion pictures.    

After the 1981 film, Wilder still wrote and developed ideas with his writing partner

I. A. L. Diamond in his office in Hollywood until Diamond suddenly died in 1988 at the age of 67 of blood cancer.

Billy was understandably shaken by losing his friend and creative partner of more than 30 years.  

After his retirement he did give detailed long form interviews about his long and influential career and was awarded numerous accolades or what Wilder called,

"Quick before they croak awards"

The American Film Institute Life Achievement Award in 1986.

The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1988.

The Kennedy Center Honors in 1990

The National Medal of Arts in 1993.

It goes without saying he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In his retirement Wilder became well known for having one of the finest and most extensive art collections in Hollywood, collecting mainly modern art.

As he described it in the mid-80s,

"It's a sickness. I don't know how to stop myself. Call it a disorder if you want – or curiosity or passion. I have some Impressionists, some Picasso's examples from every period, some mobiles by Calder. I also collect tiny Japanese trees, glass paperweights, and Chinese vases. Name an object and I collect it."

“Most of the refugees had a secret hope: ‘Hitler will be defeated and I will go back home,’ ”

said Wilder, “I never had such a thought. This was home. . . . I had a clean-cut vision:                    "This is where I am going to die.”

While I was researching and writing this series of blogs, I discovered that there is going to be a film adaptation of the book “Billy Wilder & Me”.

Billed as part coming-of-age story and part true-life portrait of Wilder, the film looks to capture “a heroic icon of Hollywood’s golden era for all cinema lovers.”

Here’s an official synopsis: In the summer of 1977, an innocent young woman begins working for famed director Billy Wilder and his screenwriter I.A.L Diamond on a Greek island during the filming of “Fedora.” When she follows Wilder to Germany to continue the shoot, she finds herself joining him on a journey of memory into the heart of his family history.

The film will be directed by Stephen Frears, and will star Christoph Waltz as Wilder and Maya Hawke as the young woman. the cast also includes John Turturro I am guessing as I.A.L. Diamond and  Jon Hamm as a handsome guy?!  Sounds great! 

My Recommendations, 

Here are my Top 10 Billy Wilder Movies to check out (in reverse order)

Thank you so much if you have read this far, I do this for fun just as a project.

If you feel inclined to help me out the best way is to click the link below and read about

The Belmont Cinema and make a small donation to them if possible.