Cast:
James Cagney (C.R. "Mac" MacNamara), Horst Buchholz (Otto Ludwig Piffl), Pamela Tiffin (Scarlett Hazeltine), Arlene Francis (Phyllis MacNamara), Liselotte Pulver (Fräulein Ingeborg), Hanns Lothar (Schlemmer), Howard St. John (Wendell P. Hazeltine), Leon Askin (Peripetchikoff), Ralf Wolter (Borodenko), Peter Capell (Mishkin), Karl Lieffen (Fritz), and Hubert von Meyerinck (Count Waldemar von Droste-Schattenburg; Sig Ruman as English voice) Produced and Directed by Billy Wilder (#106 - Some Like It Hot, #194 - Ace in the Hole, #422 - The Fortune Cookie, #641 - The Apartment, #809 - Sunset Boulevard, #1384 - Stalag 17, #1390 - The Seven Year Itch, #1825 - Double Indemnity)
Review:
"We knew that we were going to have a comedy, we [were] not going to be waiting for the laughs. But we had to go with Cagney, because Cagney was the whole picture. He really had the rhythm, and that was very good. It was not funny. But just the speed was funny...The general idea was, let's make the fastest picture in the world...And yeah, we did not wait, for once, for the big laughs. We went through the big laughs. A lot of lines that needed a springboard, and we just went right through the springboard...We just did it, nine pages at a time, and he never fumbled, he never made a mistake."
This was the 18th feature film to be directed by Billy Wilder, who had been quite busy as a filmmaker by this point in time of his career. He wrote the screenplay for this film with I. A. L. Diamond for yet another collaboration with each other as the two worked together mostly uninterrupted from Love in the Afternoon (1957) to Buddy Buddy (1981); inspirations for this film (read: borrowed) was the Ferenc Molnár's 1929 play Egy, kettő, három but also Ninotchka (1939), which had been co-written by Wilder. As such, he picked James Cagney to be the star, despite queries about the fast-paced intent. This would be the penultimate performance for Cagney, who went from liking the idea of doing a film in West Berlin to being annoyed at the experience of filmmaking with having to go with such a high pace of speaking along with not enjoying the presence of Buchholz in terms of scene-stealing. If one sees the sequence involving clothes and wondering about a morning coat and "striped pants", keep in mind that it apparently took over fifty takes to get that sequence exactly to Wilder's liking (the result was that Cagney would not appear in a film for two decades). The film was released four months after construction of the Berlin Wall started (which is why the film came out with a preface mentioning August 13, 1961 and that the people one would be dealing with here are "real shifty") and generated a muted response, although a few decades later, it found an appreciation in West Berlin. Wilder and Diamond would stay busy regardless, working together three more times in the decade with Irma la Douce (1963), Kiss Me, Stupid (1964), and The Fortune Cookie (1966).
Well, it is a fairly well-rounded production, this much is for sure. Seeing the film with the best available view (i.e. paying attention to its widescreen) will at least make one appreciate the effort taken to place these characters in as wide a space as possible to display such madcap-type of dialogue. It never really reaches a place of greatness, but it isn't hard to at least defend the movie as a silly time involving the satire of go-getters on one side of Berlin and, well, the folks in the East. It is probably one of the more obvious "hit or miss" kind of comedies, where you are either with it or find it to be a lead-footed film. Cagney may not have had the most enjoyable experience with filming, but he sure does dominate the film with a tremendous amount of commitment that anchors the film in ways that would've been lost with a lesser actor. He runs with the film and never loses a step while being quite funny in having to shift gears from enterprising razzle-dazzle to screwball razzmatazz with the right cadence to lift it all rightfully. Suffice to say though, he was probably a bit correct about Buchholz, because he is merely adequate when compared to the rest of the cast in terms of timing beyond just that edge of bluster that is only slightly funny, particularly when compared to Tiffin, who is far more interesting with her hearty timing. Francis matches well with Cagney in those screwy moments together (such as referring to her husband as "mein führer" multiple times). The rest deliver a few chuckles in parts, such as Lothar having to dodge the ramifications that arise from being asked to borrow a dress in public or a few mishaps spent with a trio of communists. The 104-minute runtime is about on par with what one might see from a really fast film with a few hijinks that may be around the speed of His Girl Friday (1940) but the end result is merely just a selection of chuckles rather than hearty laughs to go with appreciation for its look. It doesn't wear out its welcome by the end, but one can see where it may have been just a bit out of its time when it comes to the final result that is sometimes silly, sometimes overwhelming and yet one that is curious enough to seek out for those big on Wilder beyond the obvious choices.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
