THE WILDER TOUCH Billy Wilder once said, “You have to take the bitter with the sour.” His films proved that. Here he is creating some of his cynical, desperate, yet totally human characters. s e c n e i c S
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DEEP FOCUS: Gloria Swanson, o M
f o
Erich von Stroheim (left), William y m
Holden (center) and crew look on e d a c
intently as Wilder examines a strip A
e h t
of film on the set of Sunset Blvd. f o
y
(1950). (right) Wilder as an urban s e t r u
cowboy shooting perhaps his most o C
: caustic film, Ace in the Hole s o t o (1951), on location in New Mexico. h P
54 dga quarterly FEMME FATALE: Wilder sets up a secret meeting in a supermarket between Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray after they’ve knocked off her husband in Double Indemnity (1944).
s UNDER AGE: Wilder goes over e c n
e lines with Ginger Rogers on his i c S
d first film, The Major and the Minor n a s
t (1940). In the movie, she pretends r A
e to be a twelve-year-old to get a r u t c i child’s fare on the train. P n o i t o M f o y m e d a c A e h t
CLOSE-UP: Wilder directs a shot of f o y s Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) e t r u getting a facial in preparation for o C
: s her imagined return to the screen o t o h in Sunset Blvd. P
dga quarterly 57 CLASSIC COKE: Wilder SHALL WE DANCE: directs James Cagney Wilder shows Jack on the street in West Lemmon, masquerading t e n Berlin. Cagney plays a . as Daphne–the bass V T Coca-Cola executive in P
M player in an all-girls
) t h
the Cold War comedy, g band–how to tango in i r
r
One, Two Three (1960). e Some Like It Hot (1959). w o l (
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THE FAB THREE: o i t o
Walter Matthau, as shys- M TWO-CENTS PLAIN: f o
ter lawyer Whiplash Willie, y Wilder must have enjoyed m e d
gets stooge Jack a demonstrating the proper c A
Lemmon to exaggerate e technique for giving his h t
f
his injuries to collect o good friend Jack Lemmon y s e
insurance money in The t r a spritz of seltzer in Irma u o
Fortune Cookie (1966). C
: La Douce (1963). s o t o h P
58 dga quarterly dga quarterly 59 HOME COOKING: After she tries to kill herself, Shirley MacLaine is nursed back to t e health by Jack Lemmon, under n . V
T the watchful eye of Dr. Wilder, P M
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e in The Apartment (1960). t i s o p p o (
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n NO ONE’S PERFECT: e i c S
Wilder shows Marilyn Monroe d n a (off camera) how to kiss the s t r A supposedly frigid Tony Curtis e r u t
c in the seduction scene from i P n
o Some Like It Hot. i t o M f o y m e d a FALLING IN LOVE: Wilder c A
e orchestrates the courtship of h t f o
Audrey Hepburn and her unlikely y s e t r suitor, Humphrey Bogart, in u o C
: a scene from Sabrina (1954). s o t o h P
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