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Post by Jep Gambardella on Jan 6, 2022 19:42:55 GMT
I watched it for the first time yesterday. I am a big fan of Billy Wilder but I hadn’t even heard about this one until some time ago when I looked up his filmography to see which ones I was missing. The story takes place in Berlin before the wall was built, when it was still possible to cross from West to East and vice-versa more or less freely. The protagonist, played by James Cagney, is the American director of the local Coca-Cola office. His boss in the USA “asks” him to host his daughter, who is doing a tour of Europe. Trouble starts when she falls in love with a die-hard communist young man from the East. I thought it was hilarious. For my money, it is funnier than Some Like It Hot, which is widely regarded as Wilder’s best comedy. It is very much a product of its time, poking fun at communism, Germany and its still recent Nazi past, but also at Americans.
Has anyone seen it?
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Post by Isapop on Jan 6, 2022 20:15:56 GMT
I certainly put it in the upper half of Wilder's films. The only film of his that he made after "One, Two, Three" that I think more of is "The Fortune Cookie". Favorite line: "Put your pants on, Spartacus!" |
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Post by marshamae on Jan 6, 2022 20:29:31 GMT
Glad to find another fan of this film. Not sure I would class it as funnier than Some like it Hot but to me it was as funny, even though it lacked the depth Marilyn showed in her being through with love.
All the characters in 123 are shallow. Arlene Francis was the only one moving toward the deep end and even she was a one off of Alice Kramden but she did it well. Cagney in my view cannot be bad, and he rose to her offer of. Genuine couple drama any time they were in the frame together. Reportedly he became frustrated with his fumbling the patter dialogue and decided to end his film career. He also LOATHED Horst Bucholz. Others agreed , it seems. But he did not do badly. With h8s shift from ardent communist to Capitalist son in law. I can think of a few continental actors of the time who would have done better but. He was not bad.
Pamela Tiffin did extremely well as the daughter, with an over the top Georgia Peach accent and a silly ditz of a part. She was a smart actress and I wish she had had a chance to make the shift Ann margret made to good drama.
The real star here is the script and the German players . The Cuckoo clock and the Yankee go hom3 balloons, the self destructing Russian car were hilarious but nothing compared to Cagney’s One Two Three speeches . Lisalotte Pulver as the polka Dot Secretary and Hanes Lothar as the long suffering Schlemmer were excellent.
This film is actively disliked by many fi”m buffs and as I said, it lacks gravitas But it is very funny Wilder.
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Post by Penn Guinn on Jan 6, 2022 20:30:26 GMT
An all time favorite ! No one does funny angry bordering on hysterical quite the way that Cagney does. Outstanding writing and supporting cast. edit ... and what marshamae said !  edit edit Topped by Some Like it Hot ... another Wilder forever film ! |
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Post by Hurdy Gurdy Man on Jan 8, 2022 5:14:42 GMT
It is an outstanding film and one of Wilder's several masterpieces. There are so many jokes that absorbing them all in a single viewing is near impossible. It pokes fun at capitalism, communism and even Nazism! A good knowledge of contemporary history shall only help the viewer to reap rich rewards. If I had to choose just one moment that shall stay with me till I die would be when Khrushchev's picture falls off the frame revealing Stalin's underneath.  |
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Post by Doghouse6 on Jan 8, 2022 8:01:48 GMT
Hilarious it is, if a bit all-over-the-map. Cagney tends to hold the disparate elements together, like one of those legendary strongmen who stood gripping the reins of two horses attempting to charge in opposite directions. Still, I've seen it multiple times and actually have more affection for it than Some Like It Hot, although neither are among the Wilder films to which I most gravitate.
In comparing the two, the differing approaches are what most catch my attention. SLIH takes a farcical premise, and plays it with sincerity and heart. OTT does rather the opposite, with the premise of east-west Cold War tensions played as the most bombastic farce, as though aimed at the last row of a B'way second balcony instead of a motion picture audience. Along with Wilder's and Diamond's adaptation of The Front Page, this quality renders it something of an outlier among the director's comedies, which generally tended more toward the sly insinuation of understatement.
Nevertheless, always good for a re-view every few years. And it features one of the most perfectly timed, guffaw-earning lines in any film: "I wish I were in hell with my back broken!" Wilder must have liked it too, as he gave an earlier version of it to Bogart in Sabrina: "I wish I was dead with my back broken." The tiny change in wording and Cagney's cannon-report delivery give it the punch that had been missing before.
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