YMMV / The Apartment

• Award Snub:
  • Oddly, despite having the dominant supporting part in the film and doing an excellent job with it, Fred MacMurray wasn't even nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award, with the Academy instead acknowledging Jack Kruschen in the minor (though still entertaining) role of Dr. Dreyfuss.
  • Shirley MacLaine missed out on winning the Best Actress Oscar that went to Elizabeth Taylor for BUtterfield 8. Even Taylor herself didn't believe she gave much of a performance in that film, but it was something of a Consolation Award after years of nominations without wins, as well as the result of an outpouring of public sympathy when she fell ill with pneumonia during the filming of Cleopatra and had to have an emergency tracheotomy right before the voting began.
• Comedy Ghetto: Managed to break out and win Best Picture (though it's really more of a comedy-drama than a pure comedy).
• Esoteric Happy Ending: The film ends with a fairly mild happy ending, but even that is somewhat diminished when you think about it. Both Kubelik and Baxter have just lost their jobs under highly acrimonious circumstances, so it's unlikely that they'll get employment references. Baxter is moving out of the apartment and has no idea where he'll live or what he'll do. And Baxter is infatuated with Kubelik, who is on the rebound and has recently attempted suicide, which is not a great foundation for any new relationship. It seems pretty likely that they're both in for some very rocky times.
• Harsher in Hindsight: With the woman Dobisch picks up at the bar already being a bit of a Take That! to Marilyn Monroe, having a character attempt suicide via an overdose of prescription pills is disturbingly prophetic.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • In the scene where Baxter drowns his sorrows at a bar on Christmas Eve, that's Hal Smith — better known as Mayberry town drunk Otis Campbell on The Andy Griffith Show — playing the drunken Santa Claus. (Contrary to what you might assume, it's not an Actor Allusion, as the movie was released several months prior to the show's debut.)
  • Three of the philandering executives who borrow Baxter's apartment were played by actors who went on to become well-known TV faces: Ray Walston (Dobisch) had his breakout role as Uncle Martin on My Favorite Martian and later earned two Primetime Emmy Awards as Judge Henry Bone on Picket Fences, David White (Eichelberger) played advertising executive Larry Tate on Bewitched, and David Lewis (Kirkeby) originated the role of Edward Quartermaine (who was also a corporate executive who engaged in numerous extramarital affairs) on General Hospital, playing him for 15 years and winning a Daytime Emmy for his performance. That's in addition to Fred MacMurray (Sheldrake), who was already an established star but would begin his popular role as Steve Douglas on My Three Sons a few months after this film's release.
• Unintentional Period Piece: The film is remarkably timeless for something made in 1960, but a few things do show their age:
  • Fran's occupation as an elevator operator was already pretty archaic even then. Nowadays, the profession is entirely extinct.
  • Baxter has all of four channels to surf when he sits down to watch television.
  • The fact that new episodes of The Untouchables is a plot point dates the film.
• Values Dissonance: Baxter informs Miss Kubelik that he looked up her card in the group insurance file and then recites back to her where she lives, who she lives with, her height, her weight, and her social security number. She finds this to be amusing, and it's depicted as part of Baxter's innocent infatuation with her. Nowadays, people would rightly find this to be an incredibly creepy invasion of privacy and a red flag of an unbalanced stalker.
• Values Resonance: The film's depiction of men abusing their money and power to take sexual advantage of women is, unfortunately, still highly relevant decades later, especially in light of the 2010s Harvey Weinstein scandal and the #MeToo movement.

---