Word: wildering
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...three later pictures, The Apartment (1960), Irma La Douce (1963), and The Fortune Cookie (1966), Wilder again provides nice sympathetic victims (Jack Lemmon in the first two, Ron Rich in the latter). But, perhaps to counteract this, he makes the victimizers increasingly grotesque. Walter Matthau's conniving lawyer Whiplash Willie in the recent Fortune Cookie is Wilder's most terrifying caricature of humanity. Matthau, constantly shifting his eyes trying to locate the quickest buck, fails to say one generous thing during the entire picture. The cruelties of this character, as you might expect, contrast sharply with the mild evils...
Unlike the characters, the audience is let in on the mistaken identity aspects of the plot from the beginning-and that's the point. Wilder wants us to share with him his contemptuous laughter for all affairs human...
...nasty as Wilder is, he is also undeniably entertaining. I don't know quite how to explain that, except to say that he is intelligent enough to eschew a sledge hammer approach. In his best films-and his best films are gems-he keeps things moving so quickly and so lightly that you hardly have time to wince...
...Welles.) Of those the one you cannot miss, whether you've already seen it or not, is Some Like It Hot. This comedy which revolves around two third-rate musicians who become members of an all-girl band to escape some murderous Chicago gangsters, is in every way Wilder's masterpiece. The nastiness is gentle but omnipresent: the evocation of the twenties' setting is beautifully detailed; the screenplay by Wilder and long-time collaborator I.A.L. Diamond is relentlessly hilarious. In addition, the amazing performances of Monroe and Curtis show Wilder's often underrated ability with actors...
Marilyn Monroe's performance in Some Like It Hot is particularly worth a revisit, for she is the ultimate Wilder victim. During the film she is constantly being manipulated and that upon. While her role takes on a special kind of poignance in the light of the disastrous end of her analogous personal life, the part is also important for showing Wilder's ultimate sympathy for the genuine and vulnerable individuals preyed scheming mass...