The Bechdel Cast - The Apartment with Emily Heller

Episode Date: March 7, 2024

This week, Caitlin, Jamie, and special guest Emily Heller discreetly go to their colleague's apartment to discuss... The Apartment.  Follow Emily at @mremilyheller on Instagram, and check out What Is...? A Jeopardy Podcast!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Brrrr. Attention, Bechtelcast listeners. We're going on tour. We really are. And it's not just any tour. It's a tour in the UK. And it's a tour where we are covering Titanic and Shrek. Brilliantly titled the Shrektanic tour. Shrektornic. We're working on it. There's a couple months before the tour. But yes, we are really excited. We're currently doing five shows in the UK with more shows to be added. Stay tuned at the end of May.

Yes, starting with two shows in London on May 22nd. One's at 6.30. That's a Shrek show. One at 9 p.m. That is a Titanic show. Then we are scooting over to Oxford on May 24th. We are covering Titanic. Okay. Then we're scooting up to Edinburgh on May 26th and doing Shrek. If you're a Scottish Titanic fan, you are going to have to commute. And I know that that's not. But listen you live in edinburgh we're covering shrek i'm sorry i'm sorry

but also you're welcome and then if you do want to see titanic you can head down to manchester we're doing a show on may 28th and that's a titanic show so as your bechdel cast allies in the US can attest to, our live shows are super fun. It is like a live episode plus a bunch of fun stuff. We dress up, we bring audience members on stage. Sometimes we do. It's just it's big and goofy and silly. And we're covering two of our favorite movies that are Bechdel cast canon. So we want to have a good time.

We'll be bringing exclusive merch. And we will be doing meet and greets before and after the show. We want to meet everybody. And we're really, really excited. So if you if you live in those areas, get those dang tickets, because these shows will sell out. Yes, they will. So head over to our link tree link tree slash Bechtelcast. All the tickets are posted there. And like we said, we're working on at least one more show in a different city. So stay tuned. We're hoping to announce that soon. And otherwise, grab your tickets for the Shrek-tanic tour. And enjoy the episode. On the Bechdel cast, the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effing vast. Start changing it with the Bechdel cast.

Hey, Mr. Jamie. Yes, Mr. Caitlin. I'm Mr. Caitlin to you. Thank you very much. Yes, Mr. Jamie. Yes, Mr. Caitlin. I'm Mr. Caitlin to you. Thank you very much. Yes, Mr. Caitlin. I'm going to need you to give me the key to your apartment so I can fuck a bunch of people there. And then I'll give you a promotion, maybe. Okay, well, here's the thing.

You'll never see me change the sheets. It's maybe implied that I did, but it's not really implied that i did so if you're cool with me getting promoted and maybe sleeping on your cum that's okay with me mr caitlin is jack lemon sleeping on his boss's cum the whole i think so he comes home and he's so tired and i like his posture isn't that of someone who has the energy to change their sheets yeah no yeah so he's sleeping and come and i don't care about that i just care that you buy me a bunch of alcohol i'm assuming you're not paying me enough to keep the bar stocked but like you know fingers crossed for a promotion i'm trying to boy boss my way to the top of insurance i don't understand the logistics of the sex apartment economy but whatever i love it it's so movie where it who knows why they need to fuck at his

apartment but he's sleeping on his boss's cum that really i like couldn't stop thinking about that the whole time because then shirley mclean i'm like now she's in the cum sheets on the worst day of her life come on i know have some i hope he changed the sheets for her doubt it jesus doesn't seem like it because the scenes move so quickly yeah i hope the doctor insisted i feel like he he of anyone in the movie would be like hold on maybe we should change these sheets anyways welcome to the bechdel cast my name is jamie loft is my name is caitlin dorante this is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the bechdel test simply as a jumping off point to initiate

larger conversations but the bechdel test yes what is it well Caitlin I can tell you as I've said uh close to 500 times before isn't that scary I know anyways we they're Bechdel now I'm gonna fuck it up the Bechdel test is a media metric created by cartoonist Alison Bechdel often called the Bechdel-Wallace test because she co-created it with her friend Liz Wallace, originally appeared in Alison Bechdel's iconic comic collection Dykes to Watch Out For and was originally about a more intersectional test than it tends to be used as. It was pointing out that women rarely speak to each other in movies as a way of talking about how queer women are never in movies and never have relationships with each other in movies as a way of talking about how queer women are never in movies and never have

relationships with each other in any case it was written as a bit and then uh became a metric that people use to this day the version we use to start the discussion is or end the discussion really is we require that there be two characters of a marginalized gender with names who talk to each other about something other than a man for more than two lines of dialogue. And it should be meaningful dialogue. For example, if you are the doctor's his wife and you're talking about chicken soup with Charlie McClain, that may be a pass. Wow. But today we are continuing. It's been a Billy Wilder year for us. It really is.

It's true because we just covered Sunset Boulevard not long ago. Looks like we will be covering, if we haven't already by the time this episode gets released, but it's a classic movie march on our matrion. And it appears as though the two movies that are going to win the poll are singing in the rain and billy wilder's some like it hot and today we're covering the apartment with an incredible guest let's get her in the mix let's do it she's a comedian, TV writer, and host of the upcoming Jeopardy podcast entitled What Is a Jeopardy Podcast? You can also check out her Comedy Central special, Ice Thickeners, and her album Pasta. It's Emily Heller. Welcome back. Hello. Oh my gosh, thank you for having me. So excited to be talking about this, especially as someone who I think prior to this past year had seen zero Billy Wilder movies,

and now I think I've seen like five. Wow. So it's been a Billy Wilder year for me too. Nice. What brought it out? It feels like he's back. He's with us again. He's back.

Like he's Jesus. He's back he's with us again what what he's like he's jesus he's back what threw you into the billy wilder expanded universe so i'm like famously not a movie person um welcome to the show yes um thank you for having me i should not be here um i so i So it kind of takes a lot for me to get into watching movies. But I recently sort of decided I want to learn how to write a farce movie. And so I just have been watching a ton. And so I've been getting recommendations for people and working my way through lists. And it just so happens that Billy Wilder is like a master of that genre also. And so we watched some like it hot. We watched Midnight.

Oh, I haven't seen that. It's so good and so farcy and so wild. Is it wilder, though? Thank you for taking that. I was like, are we going to leave it on the floor? No, I'm going to pick it up and put it where it belongs. They're professional. It's like the most complicated farce plot ever, where it's like this like woman gambler drifter comes into

town and sneaks into this high society event. And she gets sniffed out by this guy who then hires her to seduce away the man who is cuckolding him. And she's pretending to be like a duchess the whole time and meanwhile there is this like taxi driver who has fallen in love with her who's like hunting her down and it's just it culminates in this like

incredible ballroom scene. It's just it's really it's really great. But then yeah we also watched sunset boulevard and the apartment was one of the ones where it had been kind of recommended for the farce list but it's not a farce um it's absolutely not a farce no it's like i love how like ambiguous it is in genre too because it like switches a couple different times yes there are some like real hard cuts between like genre scenes too where like it'll go from the most dramatic moment of the movie to like

one of the funniest visuals of the whole thing but it does have like a lot in common with his other like farce films or just it's just like the very tight writing and the very efficient character intros and stuff. Like he's just so good at that. For sure. Yeah. I'm so excited that you've done so many. I want to watch Midnight now. Right.

It's so good. Yeah. It's kind of a B side of his. Yeah. It was really it was like one of those ones where it was like a bunch of the movies on the list. Like Some Like It Hot was very easy to find where to stream that. But Midnight, I feel like we ended up watching it like streaming on some like weird Russian,

like YouTube or something. So it's harder to track down. Cause I mean, the ending I don't, I think is like maybe not that good, but it's not like a classic, but yeah, there are some others on the list that I can recommend as well. But yeah, I'm still watching farces.

I'm still enjoying them. But it has gotten me to watch more movies, which like for some reason it needs to be part of a series. Like TV is really easy for me because I'm like I understand where this fits in with everything else I'm watching. You know what I mean? But for movies, it just feels like I don't know why it's so hard for me to like get hard for a movie. Oh, I love it. I'm like, give me just a single isolated story that I don't have to keep watching these characters again. The things Caitlin has seen in theaters would turn your head around 360 degrees.

It's awesome. I saw Stomp the Yard in theaters twice. Hell yeah. Wow. You know, and others. But anyway, well, before we talk much more about Billy Wilder and The Apartment, tell us about your podcast. Yeah, I'm very excited. my friend John Cullen called What Is a Jeopardy! Podcast, which was sort of born out of the fact that like John and I became friends because we are Jeopardy! fans. Oh my God. And yeah,

it was like I was just like on Twitter looking for someone to say something about something that was like grinding my gears about a certain Jeopardy! contestant. And I found John tweeting about it. And we also realized that there are no Jeopardy podcasts there's just the official one and that's it really there are no like good I mean there have been like a few that have like no listeners wow burn I listened to like one or two of them and they sound like they're being done at gunpoint. That is always, I'm always like really delighted to find that there are podcasts that still do not exist.

And especially because now I get to listen to you talking about Jeopardy. I mean, there's no comedy podcast about Jeopardy. Forgive me. I'm sure I'll get corrected if I'm wrong,

but work on your PR if that's the case, because I didn't find you. Come on the show. But yeah, I'm very excited, especially just because weirdly Jeopardy has gone through a few changes in the last few years, aside from just like the death of Alex Trebek, which led to that like very tumultuous search for a new host. But they also have new executive producers who have been developing this more tournament-forward

culture there, I guess, where they're really fostering more Jeopardy! celebs, personalities who they keep bringing back for various tournaments and stuff. So you get more familiar with the people who are on the show. And it just feels like there is a lot to talk about. And we're launching with the start of the Tournament of Champions, which was delayed because of the writer's strike, and is the biggest pool of contestants that they've ever had in the Tournament of Champions. Also, for the first time in Jeopardy! history, the winner of Celebrity Jeopardy! is competing in the regular Tournament of Champions. Wait, they're throwing a celebrity out into among the normies? The winner of Celebrity Jeopardy! for season 39 was Ike Barinholtz,

and they invited him to compete in the Tournament of Champions. Wow. Ike Barinholtz, that scans. Oh, yeah. he has the vibe of someone who would excel at jeopardy i'm calling him a dork oh yeah well he had auditioned for jeopardy before he was famous and oh that's cool so he was like he trained he was excited he was ready and yeah so he's competing and like he's matched up against one of like the top five seeds of the season. So he's going to get his ass handed to him. And it's very exciting. Amazing.

But it's like the guy who's probably going to beat him is like one of clearly the nicest people who you will ever see on Jeopardy. And he's also the guy who helped not scab for the TOC. He's like... Oh, okay. I was curious because I know that that was a huge thing with Jeopardy, yeah. Yes, it was a huge thing this year where they were going to proceed with the Tournament of Champions even as the Jeopardy writers were on strike, and they were going to do it using reused clues.

So they were going to do it without the writers. Bullshit. And Ray Lalonde, who is a professional set decorator from Canada, went online and was like, as a union man, I cannot in good conscience compete in the Tournament of Champions if it's going to happen without the participation of the Guild Riders. And all of the other top seeds of the tournament were like, we're with you, Ray. I love that. And so, yeah, it was like a beautiful, nerdy snowball that really warmed my heart. And that's the guy who's probably going to kick Ike's ass in the first round.

Good for him. I hope that, you know, Ike Barinholtz is like, you know, I mean, if you got to get your ass handed to you by someone, it might as well be a good person. Might as well be Ray Lalonde, the sweetest man in Jeopardy history. But yeah, so I'm very excited. Our first episode is going to air the week after the first full week of the Tournament of Champions. So we're going to get right into it.

Two very big Jeopardy fans who are not smart enough to be on Jeopardy just talking shit about everyone's favorite game show. Love it. Hell yes. Oh, I'm so excited to listen. I also feel like it's always like when I'm listening to a podcast about a show,

I'm always 50,000 times more likely to actually engage with the show and like have a ritual. And oh, I'm so excited. Oh, good. Yeah, we're hoping that it will still be like appealing to people who haven't watched every episode from the week before. Like, it's gonna be fast moving. It's gonna be basically covering the games from the week before. But there's always stuff that Jon catches that I missed. And like, hopefully there are things that I catch that Jon missed. And then there's just like general Jeopardy chat. And like, we end every episode with some like deep dive on one of the topics from Final Jeopardy just so we can learn more about it and hopefully be better at trivia in the future.

So hopefully there's enough in there even if you aren't like a diehard Jeopardy fan. I'm excited. Thank you so much. Well, back to the apartment, I guess. Seamless. Seamless. Yes. Yes.

Wonderful dismount. What is a 1960 movie that was marketed as a comedy, but also takes a hard turn in the second act? Yeah. What is The Apartment? Anyway, so Emily, you had not seen it until pretty recently. Is that right? Yeah, I watched it on Monday. Okay, well, there you. Is that right? Yeah, I watched it on Monday. Okay, well, there you go. Or Tuesday. Yeah, I watched it very recently. Yes, I watched it this week.

I'm very excited to talk about it. Welcome to the fold. And weirdly, I watched on Tuesday night. And Tuesday in the morning, I was like talking to one of my coworkers. And I was like, how's it going? What did you get up to last night? And he was like, I watched The Apartment. It was so good.

And I was like, oh my gosh, I. It was so good. And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm about to watch it. What a coincidence. Yeah. Something's in the air. Billy Wilder is like, I've been seeing

that a lot of my friends are watching his stuff on Letterboxd. I'm like, I don't know what it is, but he's back. He's back. He's back.

His ghost. I hope the farce is back. I feel like it's been a slow push and return to farce appreciation. I have a lot of reason to think that farce is coming back. God, that would fucking rock. Yeah. I hope so.

Not to brag or anything, but Jamie and I moderated a Q&A panel for Bottoms. And Bottoms feels very farcy to me oh i've got to see it i still haven't seen it but that is a good argument for me to see it now yeah it's awesome one of the things that my you know not to defer to what a man says but one of the things that my that my husband said that as we've been talking about farce just sort of incessantly for the last year and a half is he was like, I feel like the fact that maximalism is so big now means that it is the right time for farce to come back. Because farce movies are about like

just so many plots coming in and coming together. Like it's things piled on things. But again, this movie is not a farce. Right. But we'll cover more farces in the future on the podcast. We will. Jamie, what is your history with The Apartment? Oh, I have a pretty extensive history with this movie.

I know that because we just covered Sunset Boulevardvard i will glaze over it quickly but i took a class in college bravely called wilder allen and kaufman a concept that has aged really well across the board uh but where oh my cat's here uh where everyone casper is present casper okay listeners casper's newer to the mix so you might not be on a first name basis with him as you are with flea however casper's superpower is that he can watch whole movies with me he can sit motionless for two hours eyes locked like casp i made him a letterboxd account because he is watching it his system is five stars if he didn't fall asleep one star if he did and that's his system but we watched the apartment well but yeah no i took a class where there was a whole sort of like section we talked about Billy Wilder movies for a month and I really really loved it the Alan portion of the classic got in

trouble a couple times but but the Wilder part was my favorite I really kind of fell in love with Sunset Boulevard I really love the apartment I mean we were sort of covering the hits I wish we had been encouraged to watch the B-sides maybe we we were and I was drunk. I don't know. Like I was 20. I don't know. Yeah. But the apartment was one of my favorites that we covered. I really loved it. I had never seen a movie quite like it at the time. And yeah, I have watched it a couple of times over the years since then and it very least cemented my permanent and enduring love of Shirley MacLaine like just such a rare wonderful like every era of her career is unbelievable I mean especially for me who like for the first 30 years of my life, the only thing I knew about Shirley MacL the exact right age for the Animaniacs to imprint on me that same Shirley MacLaine was like a woo woo psychic. God bless. I remember that now. But

I haven't thought about that in like 20 years. That's so before college, I wasn't familiar with anything she had done when she was younger. And she's incredible in this movie. I really love, I feel like for its time, it's doing so many things that no movies are doing, which is how I feel about most Billy Wilder movies. And yeah, I really enjoyed this movie. I was really excited that you wanted to revisit it with us. And there's so much to talk about. I mean, there's stuff that this movie does that feels very dated, but there's a lot of stuff this movie does that I feel like rarely shows up in movies now. It's

wild. It's wilder. We have to do that every time. We do. Or Billy Wilder's ghost, who is just haunting the world and compelling us to watch all of his movies, will kill us.

He's so back. Yeah. It's true. We are being haunted by Billy Wilder's ghost. That's just like a new marketing thing we're trying. Long story short, I really love and appreciate this movie. Caitlin, what's your history with The Apartment? I had only seen it once before in my span of the two or three years where I was in undergrad getting my first of many degrees in film.

I don't talk about it as much because it's not nearly as impressive as my master's degree in screenwriting from Boston University. Which is exceptional. Thank you so much. Never done anything like it in any case when i was in undergrad i took it upon myself to just try to watch basically every movie that was ever referenced in any of my textbooks or just that had any historical significance so i would watch like three movies a day i don't know how i managed it because these days it takes me three days to watch a movie. And so I watched The Apartment and it's not my favorite among Billy Wilder's oeuvre. I

think it's because I find Jack Lemmon's character to be a spineless poo-poo head. Wow. Get his ass. I will. I just he rubbed me the wrong way. And I love Shirley MacLaine, but her character, I just wish she was more active or just was given the opportunity to be more active in this movie. There were things about it that didn't appeal to my sensibilities very much. So I think it's a good movie and I think it's well written and everything. But if I have to choose a movie that I want, that I'm going to have a fun time watching, it's probably not going to be The Apartment.

Sorry. Well, to be fair, I don't think anyone's coming to this movie for a fun time necessarily. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's chock-a-block with characters where you're like you want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them and be like what are you doing yes yeah cc in particular you're just like oh my god we are still caping for like mr pp at this late hour in the movie we're still like well maybe mr pp is a good guy yeah Yeah. C.C. Baxter more like Peepy Baxter. See, I wouldn't go that far.

I don't hate C.C. I like C.C. I feel like he grows a lot. I don't think that the end line of the movie is great. The ending of the movie is very movie. I don't know. We'll talk about it. Yeah.

It's sort of like it belongs in the sort of like historical canon of the like nice guy protagonists. Yes. In quotes, nice guy. R slash nice guys. But I felt like it was weirdly like a better take on that than like even more modern films. Like you root for him more than you do for like Ducky from like. Yes. I was thinking about Pretty in pink a lot during this movie okay i i mean i guess partially just because this movie is now my dad's age doxing him much like cc dox and stocks fran. So, I mean, it's, like, old. And it's hard to not watch this movie by, like, not comparing it to other movies.

But, yeah, I feel like CeCe is at least a more, well, he is deeply imperfect. And I feel like let off the hook for things that a modern good movie would not let him off the hook for i still think he's like doing laps around the quote-unquote underdog loser characters of the 80s who are like you know revenge of the nerds like murdering and assaulting women and still coming out on top where it's a bad yardstick yeah you get the feeling that he doesn't feel as entitled to anything like yeah he still wants it to go a different way but it feels like he takes no for an answer a little bit better than other movie characters still not as well as he should but um better yeah better we'll get into cc yeah yeah there's so much to talk i mean this movie has shades of gray that are like challenging

in ways that i was like i don't know if they were intended to be challenging at the time, but I'm excited to talk about it. Yeah. So let's take a quick break and then we'll come back for the recap. Woohoo! Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere,

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120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare.

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We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of My Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. And we're back. Okay, so here is the recap for the apartment. I will place a content warning at the top here for suicide. So we are in New York City. Ever heard of it? And it's about the same time that the movie came out. The movie came out in 1960. I think the movie takes place in late 1959. We are getting voiceover from C.C. Baxter, played by Jack Lemmon. He works at a large

insurance company, and he often stays late at the office until it's all right for him to go home, because he rents out his apartment, the titular apartment, to men from his company who are having extramarital affairs and who need a discreet place to fuck. Right. But he's kind of like renting for aspirational clout. Like he is not charging for this service. While he is fully stocking, like he's providing the services of the Marriott.

But he is not being paid. It seems like he's working at a loss. It's like doing stand up comedy. Right. It's sort of the rotisserie chicken at Costco where you're like, it's a loss leader, but it gets people in the door. And exactly. Same with the hot dogs. I was curious if he was charging or what but i'm also like i don't think so these men are all higher above him in this like hierarchy at the office they presumably get paid better they're like you know middle or upper management why don't they just like go split seas on an apartment that they would have more easy access to? I don't know.

I had some logistical questions. I was thinking about that the whole movie. And I think it really ultimately boils down to the fact that like it probably just started with one guy and then it snowballed. And so I think if the movie took place over a longer period of time, we'd eventually get to the point where it's like, you guys just get your own place, you know? Seriously. But we're at a moment in this guy's life where it has just sort of gotten a little out of control. And it was maybe a more manageable number of people before. I was wondering about that. And I was also like, I mean, I think probably ultimately the apartment thing is just

a you know a movie thing to keep you in the story but logistically yeah logistically it's troubling and i i'm like are we to believe which i do believe that all of these upper executives are like not firing enough synapses to understand that they should all share a spot if this is the case and also that cc probably wouldn't point that out to them because he wants to be promoted and that's like his whole journey is that it takes him so deep in the movie to give up this idea of professional advancement regardless of like who gets hurt or deceived along the way they should just all rent an apartment like it seems like they can afford it that's what i kept thinking yeah but i guess i was like location is everything or something

right the apartment is one of the characters well I do think that there are also probably, I don't know if it was explicit or not, but like some of these men do sort of pretend like it's their apartment. Yes, that too. Like there is an amount of deception. There are like, I think some of the women who end up there are people for whom like going to a hotel

would maybe raise alarm bells that these guys don't want to raise. Right. I was wondering, I was like credit card statements. Was that a thing in 1960? I don't think these guys' wives would. Women can't even have credit cards. Yeah.

Legally. Their wives would not get to see what they were spending their money on. Like that part of it where I was like, no, that would, they would very easily be able to do that. But. Right. In any case. So we've got the sex apartment that cc baxter is like borrowing out not

even renting out his neighbors including a dr dreyfus are always like hey baxter what's going on in there it sounds like you're constantly fucking you freaky little slut and he's also like that's me he's like yup mr fuck i thought that was a really funny runner i mean it is it ties into like the greater themes of masculinity that surround this movie but the fact that he at every opportunity even when it gets you know and sometimes he's being valiant about it. But other times it's like, he doesn't mind being thought of as Mr. Fuck. Right. Oh, yeah. Okay. So then Baxter arrives home after one such night where he has let a guy use his apartment. In this case, it's Al Kirkaby, someone from upper management at his company. And Kirkaby is like, yeah, I'll put in a good word for you for this possible promotion.

Later that night, another guy who Baxter works with, this is Mr. Dobish, calls and he's like, hey, I met this woman who looks like Marilyn Monroe and I need to fuck her immediately. Get out of bed, even though it's 11 o'clock and let me use your apartment right which is like a winky nod to the fact that billy wilder just worked with marilyn monroe the previous year in some like get hot and also seven year itch i don't know when the seven year itch came out i think it was before this could be anything i think it was the 50s anyways like it would seem more misogynist than it is if you didn't know that they had this working relationship true in any case baxter gets out of bed he goes and waits outside but mr dobish leaves the wrong key after he leaves. So Baxter can't get back into his apartment and he catches a cold. So the next day at work, he's like all sniffly and he chats to the elevator

operator, Fran Kubelik, played by Shirley MacLaine. And they're talking about colds and it's like kind of flirty, or at least he's trying to be flirty with her. It's flirty. It's friendly. I feel like he is like many men before him. And people of all genders. But I will single out men in this regard. Interpreting friendly behavior as.

Romantic interest. She's obsessed with me. Yeah. Yes, that does tend to happen, doesn't it? And then Al Kirkaby, the guy from the night before, is like, oh, Baxter, I saw you talking to Miss Kubelik. I'd like to take her out, but she always refuses my advances for some reason. And it's like, yeah, maybe because you regularly assault her. We just saw you assault her in the elevator. So then Baxter cancels the sex appointment that night for this other guy because he wants to stay home and rest because of his cold.

So he has to make all these adjustments with the sex apartment schedule to shift people around and then he gets called to the office of mr sheldrake played by fred mcmurray who we talked about in the double indemnity episode oh yes yes in any case so he's the head of personnel at the insurance company and Baxter's like hmm is this about my promotion that's been floated and then Mr. Sheldrake is like I know all about your little arrangement with your sex apartment and I want in on it too he's a dog I think that one of the great bait and switches this movie does is like really expose Mr. Sheldrake for how slick he thinks he is versus how slick he actually is, where he's like, I'm not like the other men that have no respect for my wife. I'm built different. And like he isn't. And the movie knows that.

And I think the way that that rolls out is really smart. Yeah. They really misdirect what his feelings are going to be about the apartment. Like you feel like he's in trouble at first for what he's doing, which sets him up as a person with like integrity, even though he's immediately about to be like, I also want it. Right. Yeah. Right. want it right yeah right but i mean it's clear that he like he thinks he's better than the other men who are also like deceiving both i feel like this movie does a good job of the two-hander of

like deceiving their their wives and also deceiving the women that they are with by just lying out their asses all the time true but sheldrake kind of the worst of all because he thinks he's smart at least the other guys don't seem to be suffering that delusion yeah it's hard to tell we don't get to know them very well but they're comic relief yeah right so then baxter catches on and he gives sheldrake the key for that night in exchange for two tickets to see the music man. So Baxter is like, hey, Miss Kubelik, do you want to go with me to the play? And she agrees to meet him there. But first, she's like, I have to go meet an old boyfriend for a drink. And it turns out to be Mr. Sheldrake, who she had had an affair with over the summer. But again,

he's married. And it seems pretty clear that that relationship was never going to go anywhere between Fran and Sheldrake. But he's also trying to rekindle things. And he's like, no, I am going to divorce my wife actually. And Fran still loves him and she wants to spend time with him. So she bails on the date with Baxter to see the music man. And she goes off with Sheldrake to Baxter's apartment, not knowing it's Baxter's apartment. We cut to Baxter's apartment we cut to Baxter being stood up at the theater and he's all sad and he doesn't know either that you know Fran is at his apartment with another man you know it's the worst I had this sort of instinct like when have you ever been watching tv and then you do the very like annoying modern thing where you like swipe at something that cannot be swiped at?

Uh huh. Like next thing I was like, she should have texted him. And I was like, now hold on. My father is an infant. Like there is no way for her to reach out never mind it's true so then at work baxter has gotten his promotion that he's been promised and he moves into his own office but he also starts kind of withholding access to the sex apartment for those like four men who helped him get the promotion. And he's withholding this access to everyone except for Mr. Sheldrake.

There's this scene where Baxter's like, hey, Sheldrake, I think your lady friend left this broken compact mirror at my apartment. Chekhov's broken compact mirror, that apartment check off's broken compact mirror that is exactly and also it doubles as a little metaphor for the state of the human condition hello what i'm cheering and that she probably considers herself permanently damaged by this relationship in a way that cannot be repaired yeah wow i was like wow that's the moment billy wilder won his oscar for this one broken mirror to represent damaged character boom what what what critics are calling it subtle it's wild it's wild, wow. It's really wild. Yes. So Baxter doesn't know that Sheldrake's lady love is Fran still until the holiday party a few weeks later where Fran lends Baxter the same broken mirror so that he can look

at his ugly bowler hat. Got his ass. Sorry about it. That bowler hat really cracked me up he's like i'm a big shot now check out my new hat and it's like you look like charlie chaplin now yeah yeah i wrote down red flag there if when a guy gets really drunk he's like check out this cool hat i bought should we go out run away yeah no it is like a sign of hubris to be like i'm trying a new kind of hat it's a sign that the character is like on a decline morally that's true yeah he's gotta like let someone else fix him and you know

circle back in a couple years see how he's doing yeah for sure but baxter sees the broken mirror that fran has and he puts two and two together meanwhile fran is very sad because mr sheldrake's secretary just told fran about the several other women who he has had affairs with over the years and who he has lied to about how he's going to divorce his wife for them. So Fran is really upset. Baxter is really upset because his crush is sleeping with his boss. So he leaves the party and he goes to a bar and gets super drunk. Meanwhile at Baxter's apartment Fran is there with Sheldrake and she's crying because of his shitty behavior. He has to leave to catch a train to be with his wife and Fran stays behind. We kind of cut back to Baxter who's

coming back to his apartment with a woman he met at the bar. He discovers Fran in bed. She has taken a lot of sleeping pills and she's not waking up. So Baxter panics. He goes and calls the doctor neighbor over to his apartment. The doctor saves Fran's life and Baxter calls Sheldrake and tells him about the incident. But Sheldrake doesn't really want to be bothered with it, especially it's Christmas Day, spending the day with his family. And finally, Fran wakes up and Baxter tends to her, he gets her fed, they play cards together. But she still feels awful, both physically and emotionally and she's still in love with and heartbroken over sheldrake meanwhile fran's family is worried because they haven't seen

or heard from her in a couple days which i'm like that's one of the things with me for baxter where i'm just like you gotta like i understand he's like well you know don't call people while you are like before you kind of get your head back on straight sort of but then at some point it's starting to like before her brother-in-law arrives and he sucks as well but like before her brother-in-law arrives it's starting to feel somewhat hostagey. Yes. Where it feels like a baby-it's-cold-outside-style hostage. Yeah. Where he's like, well, you know, you're not quite ready. I mean, he's covering Sheldrake's ass.

Exactly, yeah. He knows that the discretion of the situation will affect his relationship with Sheldrake. So it's not purely him taking care of her. It's him being like, I have to keep her quiet about this. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of on this watch, it was like, wow, Baxter is like a cad deeper into this movie

than I remembered. That's why I don't like him very much. Anyway, so her family's worried about her. Her brother-in-law, Carl, finds out where Fran is and he shows up at Baxter's apartment, assumes that Baxter is a sleazy guy who's taking advantage of Fran, which isn't exactly right. But, you know, Baxter is all like, damn, I'm in love with Fran. So the next day he goes to work, prepared to confront Sheldrake and tell him that he should forget about Fran because Baxter wants to be with her. But Sheldrake is like, actually, my wife left me because she found out about all my affairs. So I'm going to be with fran by the way here's another big promotion for all your trouble this scene is so fucked in so many

different directions that it's wild but like it's wilder sorry sorry it's wilder but yeah i mean particularly i was like sort of surprised by the sort of like nakedness that Mr. Sheldrake presents. Like, well, obviously, if I'm alone, I will die. So because I've been rejected by someone rightfully, I must enter this new relationship under false pretenses. And like he just presents it like, of course, you get it. Like, of course, this is what's going to happen. Yeah. What I really appreciated about this scene too

is that like, you get into it with watching Cece practicing the speech she's going to give to Sheldrake of like, I'll take her off your hands for you. And whenever you see someone practicing a speech they're about to give, you know that they're not going to successfully give the speech. Right. Good trope. and so you kind of watch that being like okay i get it we're not going to hear this like but then you do hear the speech it's just that sheldrake says the

exact same words he's like i'll take her off your hands and i thought that that was like an impressive way of like subverting that trope yeah to make it feel new and i was just like wow that's really skillful because i was kind of rolling my eyes yeah and now i'm not anymore totally i mean and i feel like it gets at something that i think this movie is doing really well which is like drawing your attention to the fact that they both view her as meat, but they view themselves somewhat differently. They both think that they're ultimately good people and neither of them are consulting with the woman that they are laying claim to. Like she is property in both of their eyes and both of them think, well, the way that I view her as property is good.

Yeah. Right. Which is obviously a major reflection of the mentality of the time and how women were viewed by most men. Totally. But it's frustrating to watch nonetheless. Anyway, Baxter takes the promotion that Sheldrake offers. But sometime later, Baxter bumps into Fran at work. She's gotten back together with Sheldrake, who is making arrangements to divorce his wife and to marry Fran, allegedly. And Baxter's like, oh, yeah, I was just using Sheldrake this whole time to get a promotion. I don't even care about you being with Sheldrake. And also, I have a big date tonight. We find out he's lying about all of this.

Then there's a conversation between Baxter and Sheldrake where Sheldrake wants to borrow the key to Baxter's apartment again so he can take Fran there. But Baxter has finally had enough. So he quits. He goes home and packs up the apartment. He doesn't know what he's going to do, but he just knows he has to get out of this place. Meanwhile, Fran is at a New Year's Eve celebration with Sheldrake. And he's all like, we're going to go to Atlantic City to go to a hotel tonight because Baxter won't even give me the key to his apartment anymore. Especially if I'm taking you there.

His the apartment. His the apartment. And she's like, wait a minute. Does that mean that Baxter loves me? So she runs through the streets as everyone is ringing in the new year. And I'm like, okay. When Harry met Sally, certainly saw this movie and has some homage to pay. And Fran goes to Baxter's apartment

and he's like, wow, I'm so glad you're here. I love you. And she's like, uh-huh. And then they finished their card game from earlier. And then I guess they're going to be together. The end.

Woo-hoo. We do. See, I actually interpreted her hearing that Baxter had quit his job less as like, oh, my God, he loves me. I feel like she knows he loves her throughout. I took this to mean her being like, oh, he decided to stop being complicit in this horrible scheme. Maybe it's giving the movie too much credit. But to job, Caitlin, with your brain. I was interpreting. Well, now I don't know what the word is. Interpreting. Interpreting.

Yikes. Okay. So I thought that because you see her face like lighten up as he's like yeah he won't even give me the key anymore especially if i'm taking you there so maybe it's like a combination of both because she's like oh wait he doesn't want me to be with another man he wants to be with me. But I might just be having too simple of an interpretation. Yes! Yay! You did it! Caitlin, I feel like both reasons make sense. And I also think that it feels kind of intended that it's left a little bit open-ended because if it wasn't intended to be open-ended, I feel like you would have gotten, you know, like a kiss or something. All we really know is that she is like willing to,

I think the most generous read I was able to get to on the ending, which I didn't love, but the ending shot is such a banger. Like it's hard to not love the ending shot. But yeah, the most generous read I was able to get to is that at very least, Shirley MacLaine's character is really happy that he did not sell her out further, I think.

Like I think that it could be seen as like, wow, this is the first time in at least the course of this movie and possibly her adult life that she has not been put out as property and as an opportunity versus a person and i think that connects back to like the be a mensch be a human being theme that the movie seems to want to do but i also think you're supposed to think they get together at the end yeah I sort of, as with many movies, I sort of hope that the ending to this movie is that they hook up for a month

and then break up and remain friends. That's my wish for most couples in most movies is that they fuck for a month and stay friends for their whole lives. Yeah, I mean, to me, I'm like, the happy ending of this movie is not that they get together. It's that she is allowed to consider that there is something else that's possible outside of the system that she has been sort of ground down to accept.

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Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of My Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. And we're back. We're back. Emily, where would you like to start the discussion? What's jumping out to you?

Oh, my gosh. I don't even know where to start. I mean, the first thing that I want to say about this movie is that I just I really appreciated how everything was paying something off. Like there was nothing new introduced that was like important that we didn't already know about like even the sleeping pills where it's like they're introduced when he's like i can't give you the apartment tonight i'm sick i already took a sleeping pill like and it doesn't feel clunky it feels like oh it's serving a purpose there you don't expect it to come back but then when it does come back when she takes the full bottle you're like oh that was just so efficient and so well done very good writing

yeah and the mirror coming back this wilder he's got a big future ahead yeah and i also love the like that's how it crumbles cookie wise oh my gosh i I was thinking, was anyone in the chat a big fan of Bruce Almighty? I wouldn't call myself a big fan. I've seen it. Okay. For all my Bruce Almighty heads, that's how the cookie crumbles is very much the Jim Carrey character's slogan throughout the movie. And I believe that it is a clear reference to the apartment oh could be

the end bruce almighty heads shout out wow but i was feeling the bruce almighty the movie had seen apartment the movie i mean a lot of movies have seen the movie the apartment when harry met sally movies are people and that's how we engage with them. One thing that I appreciate about this movie is that I think it's a good example of how men fail upwards and get promotions that they don't deserve and how women are often overlooked for promotions and opportunities in general because men are obsessed with looking out for each other when they engage in bad behavior and i think that's one of the many reasons that the patriarchy has perpetuated itself for centuries i don't think the movie is commenting on that

but it is presenting it i think it is like presenting it pretty effectively. I don't know how I would suggest it be shifted. But I feel like yeah, you're given many elements of this like workplace patriarchy. And as a viewer, like you're sort of expected to put it together yourself. The movie doesn't really do that. And then at moments, I think it kind of fails its characters but it's weird because i feel like there is like all these shades of gray where it's based on what we see of cc baxter like it's not that he is bad at his job it's that he recognizes that the only way to get ahead is to cater to everyone around him's basest, most manipulative instincts to the people around

them. And he's fine with that. So it's like a lot of male characters we've talked about over the years. He is both subject to the patriarchy because he's so in the middle and he's also being uplifted by it at the same time and is okay with that. Right. And you see the alternative. He has that coworker who works at the next desk over who's been there longer than him, who has done probably more better work than him because he's so distracted taking care of the apartment anyway. We don't see him work ever. Yeah.

And that guy is never going to get a promotion. And he begrudgingly congratulates Cece when he like gets the promotion that he earned through dubious means. And you recognize that like the alternative to participating in the sort of corrupt hierarchy of this institution is just languishing in the position that you're in. And so it both like lets Baxter off the hook for his choices in some way, but it also indicts the institution. Right. Yeah. And then I feel like on Fran's side, I'm curious what everyone thinks about it, because I didn't remember that they tell you that she did have higher career aspirations, but was held back, which it seems like she I mean, i would guess that she and baxter are like they're

intellectually matched but baxter has the credentials the fact that he is a white man and the fact that he because he's a white man he has the opportunities to advance and they were like well sorry you like can't spell well enough So you're stuck in this very feminized working class position of this time indefinitely, which seems to be, I mean, among other things, but it does seem that like part of her depression comes from the fact that the world that she is in does not offer her opportunities for advancement, like nefarious or otherwise i mean i also wonder what the implication was supposed to be of the fact that like baxter's neighbors are jews and

there was like a class implication there that like even though that guy is a doctor they live in this like kind of shitty apartment building with this bachelor and there is like for him and for why can't i remember her name shirley mclean's character why can't i know fran for fran yeah that they both don't have the same privileges that other people around them do and so they are kind of like scraping to get by. Yeah, I was curious about that, too. I mean, I know that Billy Wilder was a Jewish writer and included other Jewish characters in his films. I don't know. I mean, that sort of brings me into like some of the context for the way that this movie was produced.

There's not a ton of it that I think is super relevant to talk about. But the things that I guess I would want to talk about is the fact that like Billy Wilder had like started in noir and, you know, like did Double Indemnity in the 50s. He does all of these wacky comedies. And then in the 60s, it seems like this is the first example of him getting to ideas he wanted to produce in the 40s but wasn't allowed to because of the Hays Code until the 60s. So this was like an idea he'd been noodling around with since the 40s, but this was the first time he actually got clearance to do it. And I don't know, I wasn't able to find a lot about the writing of the movie itself. It was co-written with a common collaborator, I.L. Diamond. This movie takes place in 1959, but it also feels like a little bit out of time. Yeah. I mean, it feels really modern in a lot of

ways. And it's sort of like cynicism about sex and everything, which I think is a little bit of like a Billy Wilder hallmark. Like his movies are a lot about like cynical people finding joy in spite of themselves. And in spite of like them feeling sort of above the mores of the time. But I also kept thinking about like what it would be like to watch this movie if I hadn't already seen Mad Men.

Ooh. Right. Because I feel like Mad Men. Ooh. Right. Because I feel like Mad Men was so like, oh, my God, this was so normalized. And we're blowing your mind with that. And it feels like this must have felt a bit more radical to see before that was like the common understanding of what these types of businessmen were up to. Especially because the production code was still in effect when this movie was being developed and released. The kind of parameters of it were getting more lax as time went on. And I think it was in 1968 that the Hayes production code was like officially dissolved and

replaced with the rating system. But it was still enforced to some degree when this movie came out. And so I was surprised that there were things that this movie got away with that I wouldn't have expected it to be able to talk about and like pretty directly and explicitly address, such as suicide and suicidal ideation and infidelity slash sex out of wedlock. And abortion. Oh, wait, what's the abortion component? So, I mean, it's not as explicit as talking about the suicide, but there's a moment when her brother-in-law comes to the apartment to retrieve her and he introduces Dreyfus.

He's like, this is her doctor. And the guy like almost punches him. And he's like, not that kind of doctor. Oh, my God. OK, I did not connect that. her doctor and the guy like almost punches him and he's like not that kind of doctor oh my god okay i did not connect that yeah the implication being that like she's recovering from an abortion versus and obviously they don't say it but it is strongly implied that like oh yeah that would be the other thing that the doctor would be there treating her for at home, that totally makes sense. God, that did not register for me at all. Yeah, I barely caught it.

This movie is really good, folks. But getting back to your original point, Emily, I thought it was interesting that the only character that I think like we know is Jewish is also the moral center of the movie. And also, yeah, like of a higher class and profession than our protagonist. Yeah. But I really like, I don't know. I like Dr. Dreyfuss.

And his wife. His wife. I hate that like we have his, her name is Mildred. We do hear her name. So for rectal test purposes, she just skates through, although she is mostly referred to as his wife but I also was like pleasantly surprised that Jack Crucian who played Dr. Dreyfus was nominated for an Oscar for that part

Jack Lemmon Shirley MacLaine and Jack Crucian are all nominated for Oscars. This movie was nominated for a million Oscars and won a bunch, not for acting. But in any case, I felt like Dr. Dreyfuss, I don't know, he was interesting to me because in some ways he and certainly Mildred are allies to Fran based on what they know about the situation. But they also have very like 1960s views of sex and promiscuity in general which i feel like this movie is sort of playing around with and referencing how

older generations versus younger generations view sex and promiscuity at this time right yeah i mean they're not as disgusted with him as they could be, I suppose, because they were like not in a position to be. But you are like, oh, they have sympathy for her, even if they don't have sympathy for Baxter. Right. Which I was surprised about because so much of slut shaming and like promiscuity shaming is directed toward women and there's of course the famous double standard of oh if you're a man who's fucking all the time you're awesome and if you're a woman who's doing that you're a horrible dirty disgusting person or it's just like fundamentally assumed that you're being

deceived versus participating right right that too and so for like dr dreyfus's his wife mildred she's like yes i'll fix some breakfast for her i wouldn't do anything for you cc baxter because you're a dirty rotten scoundrel he's a dog but for her because i think she almost views fran as a victim almost of like cc baxter's constant parade or what they perceive as like a constant parade of like women coming and going out of his apartment yeah like because she's assuming that fran has overdosed as a result of cc she is going off of what she knows right yes who knows where her sympathies would be if there wasn't a suicide attempt true exactly yeah that was something that was on my mind because this is the first time and i like dr dreyfus does not hesitate to intervene it's not like he's unwilling

to help someone who he has moral questions about which is what doctors should do not necessarily what they always do but I wondered how Mildred's opinion of Fran would change if she was not in this position. But I also think it's fair to assume that Cece's a liar because he is. So that's something to keep in mind. Can we explore the romance between Baxter and Fran a bit? Yeah, I think we should. Because I find it fascinating. So she's introduced in the elevator.

You know, he's trying to be flirty with her. He asks her out for lunch. She like smiles, but doesn't express any interest and like kind of shoes him out of the elevator. Yeah, I would say it's friendly, but it's not flirtatious as he interprets it. Right. As far as my interpretation, wow, I did it without even trying. I said the word. She is being cordial and professional.

And maybe that's why she's like not being flirtatious in return, because she's like, we're colleagues. You know, that would be inappropriate. But in any case, she's showing no romantic interest not long after that he asks her to go to the theater she declines saying that she has another date with another man but Baxter kind of like wears her down a little bit and she's like okay fine I'll go with you it's right here when we get the I know where you live conversation. Yeah, this is the part of the movie that for me ages the worst.

Real bad. It's bad. One of their earlier conversations in the movie is Baxter being like, yeah, you know, we're gonna go to this play, then we'll go out dancing. I know this great spot right around the corner from where you live. And she's like, oh, sounds great. Wait a minute. How do you know where I live? And then rather than him being like, oh, yeah, she's right. It is creepy that I know where she lives and that I just told her that and acted like it was no big deal that I told her that. Instead, he's like, not only do I know

where you live, I know who you live live with I know where and when you were born I know your height, your weight, your social security number and your entire medical history because I looked up your file at the office and she's like uh huh okay this yes

I remember this from the first time I watched it being like well that's certainly disqualifying. Yes, you would think. And yet, well, that's I feel like Fran, while I think that there is so much like naivete, I think, like ascribed to her character that feels wildly unreasonable. Where it's like, yes, she is young. She's in her early 20s. But like people in their early 20s know it's scary to do that.

Like that's maybe not the guy, particularly if you are already famously not attracted to them. Like it sort of lends itself to the wearing one down thing. Yeah. I think he's benefiting here from comparison to the men who are physically assaulting her in the workplace. Right. Yes. He's the least bad guy. Yes. workplace right yes he's the least bad guy yes and like i think also like in that first scene

where she gets spanked by that guy and she sort of like tells him off a little bit you are kind of like oh well she's someone who will like stand up for herself if you're doing something wrong to her kind of and then so when she doesn't do it to him, you're like, well, she's not just placating him. Maybe she's okay with it but it is sort of presenting the fact that he is an observer of the lives of others and not a participant even in his own life like he doesn't even occupy his own apartment right and that is like the main problem that he needs to sort of rectify throughout the movie so it is like yeah this is like kind of a messed up way to like see what life is all about. Yeah.

By like reading people's insurance files. But yeah, that's giving him a lot of credit. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. That was a tricky one for me. I do like feel like that moment has potential to be. I was like sort of hoping it would be called back on in a more meaningful way later because it's like if this guy is our the guy we're rooting for and that's the way that he understands how to interface with people where

people are kind of numbers and obstacles to be overcome to get to where he wants to be i just wish that that specific plot point was called back to because it's just like age is bad i mean they did call back to it. They do. But not in a super meaningful way. Not in a way that felt critical of him really. Yes. They call back to it when she's like you know she calls back like oh you don't want people to get the

wrong idea about how I know about that like. Right. It just felt like a flirtatious callback versus like yeah hey that thing you did earlier was fucking weird yeah which is weird because she does selectively call him out on certain things but it's everything that you know we have to keep him our lead so yeah right i think it boils down to i just wish that she had been afforded more agency and perspective throughout the movie. Because, I mean, I also want to talk about how she's presented in comparison to the other women who are in the movie, mainly the women who the men are having the affairs with.

Because she's like the one respectable woman, quote unquote. It's like the 1960 version of like, she's not like the other girls. But I still find the way their romance plays out to be, you know, not great, because it's a lot of her politely declining or not showing any interest, him kind of barreling past that and wearing her down. And then there's the scene where he has put the two and two together about, oh, the person who my boss is taking to my apartment is Fran. He finds this out at the holiday party. And he gets so upset about it. And I feel like it's maybe some combination of like, oh, well, I'm jealous that the woman who I want to belong to me can't belong to me because another man has claimed ownership of her. And this is maybe

me reaching a little bit, but I'm also just like, pulling from the context of this era of like, oh, she's like, a tainted one. She's damaged goods. You know, she's not this like, I see, I didn't read it that I okay, I read it as it's still not a super charitable interpretation of Baxter. But I read that as like, oh, now I care that people's lives are being affected because I like this person. And I like that was how I read that scene where it was like, people are just numbers and bimbos. And this is just how the world works until suddenly someone that you like is involved. And then all of a sudden it matters and yeah well that's not a negative thing inherently to realize that if someone is being emotionally like deceived

or harmed is an important thing it does sort of reveal him to be like someone who is kind of selfish and that is who he is like he's like well i only care if someone i like is affected which is part of what he has to get over that i feel like you know you could argue whether he actually makes that journey fully but yeah right but yeah it's left a little ambiguous like what it is about that that affects him right yeah yeah it's hard say, but he gets so upset about it that he goes to a bar and gets drunk and picks up another woman, which I'm not casting any judgment on any of that because it sounds like something I would do. No, they're lonely and hanging out.

I always remember just the image of them like soullessly dancing cheek-ish to cheek. Like, it's so funny it's so funny and it is that hard cut from her making her suicide attempt to them dancing cheek to cheek and you're like yeah the darkest moment and the funniest moment in this movie is just like back to back yeah i just like that stark like image of like loneliness and like i feel like it could have been way more I think that in general women who are not Shirley MacLaine are made out to be kind of well a few are made out to be kind of like bimbos that are like what do you mean you're not gonna blah blah blah but I think the exception to that sort of trope is Sheldrake's secretary. I feel like we do get some interiority for her.

And I liked that in the scene at the holiday party, we have Sheldrake's, I forget what her name is. We do get a name for her. Miss Olsen? Miss Olsen. I was calling her Elizabeth Olsen in my mind because that is a famous person I've heard of. But Miss Olsen, I thought the way that she presented that information

to Fran while it was like drunk and like not super well presented the way you wouldn't when you're drunk I thought that that was like more than I expected because I feel like it would have been very easy in this setting in this time to have it turn into a rivalry and a shameful thing where i think like miss olsen's anger is well placed it's at sheldrake she knows he's a piece of shit and she literally says to fran like there's nothing to be ashamed of he is we've seen him do this like you are not and as someone who has been young naive and in that position being told by someone like hey this guy you're with he's a piece of shit i've been in your position too it never feels good and seeing it written by two men is never quite on but those like hey just so

you know i see what you're going through And this guy's a piece of shit. You're part of a pattern. You're not special. This is like he's going to do this again. Yes, totally. It is a true warning. She's not saying it to be like, fuck you. Like, yeah, she is saying it to be like, I am the ghost of Christmas past.

And totally. Yeah. the ghost of Christmas past. Totally. Yeah, having now been on both sides of that equation, that is a very meaningful interaction that we're seeing there. And the fact that that is what puts her over the edge and sends her into suicidal ideation is like we should talk about that. Also something that certainly happens.

I don't know I was surprised by that moment watching it this time because I feel like in a movie in 1960 I would assume that it would be like a woman shaming another woman of like how could you be so naive how could you blah blah blah blah blah but instead it was like a callous, imperfect moment of recognition. Yeah, I tend to agree that her intention is, you know, looking out for her fellow woman who is going through something that she already went through. But that character is also established to be someone who seems like kind of devious in the sense that she's like always sneaking around. She's very nosy. She's trying to like stir things up because we also see her call Mr.

Sheldrake's his wife and, you know, arrange to get together for lunch to tell her about all of Sheldrake's affairs. I don't think the movie judges her for that, though. No, I felt like that was a it was like a twist to reveal that she had had a relationship with Sheldrake because at first you are like, oh, yeah, she's one of those nosy people. And that's why they need to hide it. And then it sort of is like a reveal of like, oh, he's talking about her like she's nosy, but really she's scorned. And like it is a situation that he created, not a situation that she created.

Yeah. Maybe I was just because so many of the other women were presented as being like ditzy, floozy, or like naggy in some way that I just sort of carried some of that into that character. Because I do feel like a lot of those other... I think the women who are brought into the apartment are right yeah there is it seems a lot of judgment cast on them by the movie and maybe I was just carrying some of that and projecting it onto the Miss Olsen character I will wave a flag for Miss Olsen I think Miss Olsen you know, she did it imperfectly, but all of her motivations to me made sense. Like, it wasn't just like she was a spiteful, nosy person.

Like, she was fucked over by her boss. Like, she was presumably harassed at work, ended up in this relationship, and then for her own livelihood, forced to stay and watch him do this to other women. And then we see her make a drunken attempt to acknowledge one of those other women. To break a cycle. on Miss Olsen. Again, this is all traced back to Sheldrake and him thinking that he is untouchable, which I feel like made it hit even harder and more frustrating that at the end, you know he's always going to be fine, even though he doesn't end up with Fran and Fran escapes his fucking evil spiral.

You know, like he will continue to be fine indefinitely, which is true of the time and true basically still now well it's like anyone who decides like i have a moral conscience about what's happening and i'm gonna tap out is lost from the company yeah like they are all exiled and she's one of those people who's like i'm'm out, I guess, because I exposed what's happening. Yeah, right. Which tracks because men are obsessed with getting rid of anyone who will not comply with their horrible behavior. I had a little bit about because, like we've sort of been talking about for a while now like how this movie was marketed successfully as a comedy and also prominently features a suicide attempt i think i mean that was certainly

like hinted at in many movies i think this is one of the more famous examples of a suicide attempt being a major plot point there was a really good retrospective piece that came out in 2020 remember that in the av club by caroline seed that touches on sort of how the theme of suicide is touched upon i think that in some ways fr Fran makes what appears to be like an unplanned attempt on her life after Mr. Sheldrake leaves in truly the most horrific way possible. Like he's a piece. He's just like such a fucking piece of shit. And as she is recovered from that, I felt like the movie didn't judge her in the way that I would expect a movie of this time to judge her. I think that where I get a little tricky is like she is portrayed as

so naive during her recovery. I want to be generous with her there because she is recovering from something extremely traumatic and extremely horrific and she's still sort of coming back to who she is. The moment that really sticks with me is that she's not judged by Baxter. And I'm not like team Baxter. But I think the way that he handled the immediate aftermath was thoughtful, especially in the scene where he, I think that up until this point in the movie, that I don't know how to correctly phrase this, but that you wouldn't see this scenario with a man because of how we have been trained by this movie and by society at the time to think that men are knowingly dogs and women are unknowingly deceived. And that is like the binary we've been presented with. And so when Baxter comes to her very honestly and is like, I once almost made an attempt on my life also over a relationship.

And I'm so glad I didn't. And here's why. And all of this. And having that be like a moment of healing and recognition, even though, you know, I think realistically, she's still not out of the woods with navigating her feelings on this. I thought that scene is really beautiful and nice. Yeah, I agree. And I also found it surprising, again, based on the context of the time and the just sort of cultural mentality toward suicide and its misunderstanding of mental health and all of that. So, yeah, I found the movie to be like very generous with its handling of that, especially for the time.

I love Fran. And I also think that someone showing up for you in that moment does not mean that you have to be their girlfriend. That's where I have a harder time. I mean, to be fair, she does go back to shell Drake for reasons. I mean, who among us hasn't gone back to a bad relationship, even though we, know logically you know better but emotionally at that exact moment maybe you don't so we won't blame her for that but the very jarring thing to me about the recovery of the suicide attempt is the scene where the doctor is like treating her and then like, I think, giving her smelling salts or something to help her

kind of regain consciousness. And then he slaps her across the face multiple times to try to wake her up. I'm sure that was standard medical practice for the time. But you were like, this feels a little... Oh my God.

Was it necessary to show? I would say no. It was not necessary to see a man slapping a woman across the face like six times in a row. Especially as he was about to become the moral compass of the movie. Not two minutes later. Yeah. So, you know 1960 although when i had my gallbladder surgery in 2019 and i was like coming out of the anesthesia i was woken up to a doctor slapping me across the face what so maybe it is

yeah it was like traumatizing and i was like excuse me is that necessary but a doctor was slapping me in the face to wake me up because they thought I was dying because my heart rate was low. And then they're like, you went vampire mode. They were like, they're like, are you a runner? Like, do you exercise? I was like, yes. And they're like, well, your heart rate is alarmingly low.

But if you're a runner, that's actually kind of normal. But if you're not, we thought you were dying. We slapped you just to be sure. So they slapped me just in case. It was a medical slap. These were medical slaps. Sometimes, I mean, like we know the medical system is so fucked in so many ways. But sometimes, I don't know, like there were times over the summer where I was with a doctor.

I'm like, you're describing like witchcraft you're just being like ultimately we don't know we're gonna throw some leaves at it and kind of see what happens I'm like I don't feel secure in your abilities I don't trust you live laugh love I think okay the last thing i have to say about baxter yeah is that again i think that this is done unevenly throughout the movie but i appreciated where we talk so much on this freaking show about patriarchy the guy and there's one guy who represents all the patriarchy and if we vanquish this one guy the world will be solved and we will we've also seen racism the guy and we vanquish racism the guy or it's racism the lady brave and then racism is solved you know so it's like very clean movie solutions i like that

this movie does not subscribe to that i think that the tricky thing is that in the guys who aren't sheldrake who go to the apartment as well as the women who go with them are made to be comic relief in a way that is funny but kind of ultimately a little dissonant but with baxter i really like that he is I think the movie knows he is like an agent of the patriarchy because he is quite literally an agent of the patriarchy. He is like sharing his bedsheets with them for advancement. He is knowingly benefiting from this and doesn't give a shit about anyone in the equation until it's someone who he cares about who is being negatively affected by it i feel like we we don't really see characters

like that very frequently in a knowing way i think where that gets tricky is the ending implication that possibly like it almost like positions shirLaine as the reward for realizing he was an agent of the patriarchy where he's like now that he has abandoned the toxic workplace that he has walked away from it he can have girlfriend and at the end of the day isn't that what it was all for blah blah blah so that that's a little you know and again that's open to interpretation we've talked about different interpretations of that but i just appreciated that like normally when we see characters like that the movie completely absolves them of everything and it's like at the end he does get the promotion and he's gonna solve insurance from

the inside and this movie is smarter than that right and i i love it for that yeah but it still does reward him with at least like a woman's attention for that night unclear if they'll like get together romantically but again it begs the question to me what does she like about him besides the fact that he's respectful enough to take off his hat in the elevator? Like, she's given no indication that she's romantically interested in him. relationship with Sheldrake and she finally comes to realize oh this man doesn't respect me or care for me the way a person should and it

seems like Baxter based on the way he took care of me after my suicide attempt he's the better option. I don't know exactly what the implications all are. I like that it doesn't tell you what the implications all are. I like that it doesn't tell you what it is, too, because then it like makes it easier to love this movie on a longer timeline, which I want to.

That is fair. it and I don't feel like at this point or at least at the point where the movie ends that C.C. Baxter earned the redemption that he appears to get by being able to hang out with Fran. I mean he he did give up everything he had. He did. This is true. Yeah, including the apartment. And he did get punched really hard and gave up his apartment and his job and his career and like literally has nothing. I guess I just think that, yeah, I'm like men should give up that and more to deserve any redemption so i think that again it is very connected to that moment of human connection between the two of them when they're sharing this experience of like they have both been at an extremely low point and like please let me share my experience with you that you might take something from it to get through this difficult experience for me honestly i think the movie is heightened if they don't end up or even it being implied that they end up together but the most generous interpretation of the ending for me is that again he says i love

you i love you so much and she says okay let's play cards i feel like it is like we're thinking they are going to get together but I just what I would have loved is just yeah like another moment of like the moments of human connection between the two of them I like I've had moments of human connection with guys who kind of sucked that have been impactful and you know I don't think that his life should be totally but his life I mean he's like also not for nothing. He is fucked. And like,

that's not what movies are interested in or should they be? But like, you know, he's fucked. Like he, what is he gonna, you know, he's,

he's a guy he'll bounce back though. And I do believe that she will as well. Something I like about her character is we're not led to believe that like, I'm just doing this job until I find a husband. Like like it seems like she wants to have a career like it that's never brought up as something that is like a temporary thing for her and judgment isn't passed on her for it i don't know i'm becoming defensive of this movie but i do i think that like cc baxter i'm friends with people like cc baxter and the trick is never fuck them and that's the yeah i mean i do think that this movie is more critical of the sort of social understandings of

the time than it has to be yeah to tell the story and i think that it is like it doesn't let this guy off the hook even though he's not the one cheating on his wife you know what i mean like he gets all of the consequences that are coming to those guys that they never experience because he's standing in and saying like yes i'm i'm fucking all these women like he doesn't get to you know correct the record about like i wasn't actually fucking all those women other men were doing that in my bed you know what I mean and he still pays the price for it and it is still like well he

does owe something but yeah yeah anyway I think that the $100 that Sheldrake gives to Fran that she should have kept it because men owe women money period it's true i would have

i mean if i were a friend i would not have made a statement by not keeping the money i'd be like thank you and goodbye forever this is mine i deserve this a hundred dollars in 1960s money that is one thousand dollars roughly in today's money. Buddy. Let's freaking go. To be fair, she thought she was going to be dead. That's true. So when she left the money, she had no use for it. The only use for the money was to say, I don't forgive you.

Feel bad that I'm dead. True. Which I'm like, yeah, if she knew she was going to live, yeah, keep the money. But she didn't. And so she got to use it as a fuck you, which is cool. Another example of Baxter being pro-Sheldrake where he's like i got a hundred dollars for you where it's like well just let her have you know like right when she survives it seems like the money gets returned to sheldrake again but it's like no like you're alive keep it use it it's a thousand dollars in 2024 money yeah well he didn't really know what the money was at that point. That's true.

This movie passes the Bechdel test, folks. It does. Good for it. It passes primarily between Mildred and Fran when they are talking

about her recovery, which I feel like is very, you know, plot relevant. So it passes. I do think that Fran, again, like most women we see in movies to this day like it would be really cool if she had a female friend yes there's no shortage of women

in this workplace who are marginalized in much the same way she is for her to talk to and i feel like that is the way in which it sort of plays into a very like sparse story character wise, but also just how I think so often like iconic women characters in older movies are often in a bubble where they are the woman. that she lives with her sister. We assume that she has some sort of close relationship with her sister, even though it's like the only thing we know is like your sister thinks you're a lady. So it's like, well, maybe her sister would slut shame her for being a person who knows. But we're surrounded by all of these potential women for her to be allied with. We don't really see those conversations. And when we do, like with Miss Olsen and Fran, it's strictly centered on the Sh the shell drake issue right but it does pass so there you go well because this movie's only interested in fran to the extent that she has a blossoming relationship with cc baxter and outside of that the movie doesn't

really have any interest and i disagree i disagree i disagree that's not true at all then why don't we see her at home having an interior life or having friendships like what i don't think that she's the protagonist but i don't think that means the movie is disinterested in her yeah and i think it's interested in her outside of her relationship with baxter because i think that it's like it understands that there's things about her that Baxter doesn't understand because of his preoccupation with a relationship with her, that she has all these other dimensions that he's not seeing, even though he has access to her insurance file. Like he gets surprised with information about her that we as the audience know. And I think that it's like that shows that the movie has more of an interest than he does in her.

Yeah, I guess I wish we just saw more of her life outside of what we see in the movie. I very much would have liked to see her, and I don't think it would even take away from where the focus of the movie seems to want to be, to see her interact with don't think it would even take away from where the focus of the movie seems to want to be to see her interact with other people at work and again like have a friendship that seemed like a fault of the movie especially because it's a Billy Wilder movie it should be operating at a higher level we are introduced to a lot of women so for the interactions between

women to be so sparse feels telling about where his interests lie. But I don't think that that means that the story is disinterested in her. And I also think that thematically the movie is like, it's about this collection of some people who are, who when Christmas comes around, they are not needed anywhere. Like that's part of why,

like he is an observer of other people's lives who just like is doing like the insurance information about like people who actually have families and things going on but he doesn't have that for himself and she's literally an elevator operator who's like she takes people who have somewhere to go to the places that they need to go. And she herself doesn't have those things. And so I think even the fact that she has a family, the reason, like, it would be great to see her with her family. But I feel like what's important about her character in this movie is that, like, she is being kept on the outside of life in the same way that he is and that like she is unable to develop those relationships that you're asking to see because of being held in this limbo with this relationship with Sheldrake and just like being sort of an intermediary in other people's lives like that's part of what

she's struggling with in the movie sorry yeah well with that in mind let's get to our metric the nipple scale yes how you feel about the movie on a scale of one to five nipples based on how zero to five sorry wow jamie we've had 500 i'm so tired you don't understand so based on how it deals with intersectional feminist themes. Oh, this is going to be a tricky one for me. Again, of the women we do see on screen, it feels like there is like one or two respectable women and everyone else can't be taken seriously because they're the flings of the men who are having these extramarital affairs. And I just feel like a lot of kind of tropes that were popular of women of the time are present with a lot of these characters. I do like Fran as a character a lot. I just wish we knew more about her and maybe I think I also just like don't have the language to

understand what movies from this era are trying to telegraph to audiences as much as I should because there's a lot of stuff that I just don't really pick up on and that I don't interpret correctly this happens every time I watch an older movie. I'm just like, what are they even trying to say? What are they telling me? Because I just like, my brain doesn't operate that way, I think. So I don't know how I feel about this movie. I do want to say that as is very typical of movies of this era, which is a major reflection of the rampant racism of the time, this is an entirely white cast. There, I think, is one black man you see on screen in the entire movie that's like the only person of color that you would clock throughout the entire movie. And again, as is typical of the movies of this era he's in a

service role he's shining the shoes of mr sheldrake aside from that it's an entirely white movie so and there's the guy playing piano at the chinese restaurant who they do have a like his record which is called rickshaw boy uh-huh not great not good not good there's a number of scenes at a chinese restaurant that right you do see some other people of color in the background of those scenes again no one really has any significant speaking roles or anything like that unless you're a white character in this movie. So I'll give the movie... I honestly have no idea. I'll give it three nipples, question mark? Two nipples?

One nipple? Four nipples? I have no idea. I don't know how to watch movies from before 1980. The end. I'm going to go three. Okay, nice. Yeah, who would you going to go. I'm going to go three. Okay. Nice.

Yeah. Who would you like to give your nipples to? I'll give one to Shirley McClain. I will give one to Mrs. Dreyfuss. And I'll give my final nipple to Miss Olsen because, again, I feel like I projected some stuff onto her. And that was not fair of me to do. It's good to be honest. Yeah. I'll settle on three nipples and I have no idea if that's actually how I feel or not

because again, I don't know how to watch old movies. I think you're overthinking it. I think you're like wondering what this movie is trying to telegraph and it's not trying to say something like it's trying to make you think about questions. I think it's like it feels like it's trying to challenge like who is getting left behind. Yeah. And make you think about that. You know what I mean? Like it's talking about what's happening at the margins.

You know what I mean? Which I enjoy stories the center those characters and that type of narrative but i don't know like at the end of the day while i do think the movie is well written i just it's just not really for me and i have nothing else to say about it i'm going three nipples yeah i have nothing else to say about it. I'm going three nipples. Yeah, I have nothing else to say because I have to pee and leave. So I and I'm going to

give one to Fran one to Miss Olsen and I'm going to give one to Mrs. Sheldrake while I'm at it because I hope she was on to bigger, better, less piece of shit flop husband type activities.

Hell yeah. Following this movie. And those are where my nipples are going to go. Nice. Emily. I'm going to give it three nipples. I'm going to give one to Fran and then I'm going to give the other two to that woman whose jockey husband was being held hostage in Cuba because she was supposed to have sex

that night and she didn't get to have sex. So yeah. And she was appropriately pissed off about it where she was like to have sex that night and she didn't get to have sex so yeah and she was appropriately pissed off about it where she was like we made the lonely person's pact how could you what the hell is going on here yeah and she was so excited that she was gonna fuck a guy who's like i'm a sex pot she's like you're a sex pot? Woohoo. Yeah. Which I feel like the movie's in on the joke. Like the number one indication that someone is not actually a sex pot

is if they cannot stop saying that. Yeah. It's always who you least suspect. Yeah. All right. Well, that's The Apartment. Emily, thank you so much for joining us. Oh my gosh.

Thank you for having me. And thank you for like getting me to watch this movie that I probably wouldn't have watched as quickly because I loved it. Any time. Where can people check out your podcast, follow you on social media, etc.? I'm at Mr. Emily Heller on all social media. And you can subscribe to What Is A Jeopardy podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Woohoo! You can follow us on social media as well at Bechtelcast. You can go to our Linktree, Linktree slash Bechtelcast, and grab tickets to our upcoming tour in the UK at the end of May. And you can go to our Patreon, patreon.com slash Bechtelcast,

where you get two bonus episodes every month plus access to the beck catalog for five dollars a month wow and you can get our merch over at tpublic.com slash the bechdelcast get our tickets to our upcoming tour in the uk if you haven't already on our link tree and with, let's give up our apartment and wander into the unknown. Woo-hoo. Bye. Bye.

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