The Apartment, New York, NY (1960)

Artist/Designer: Edward Boyle

Project Location: New York, United States

Figure 1: Baxter’s triumphant walk in the Corporation’s open office: he brings his Rolodex card
file with him. The Apartment, directed by Billy Wilder. © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. 1960.
All rights reserved. ( Source | Accessed : April 4, 2021 )

Figure 2: Fran’s compact mirror and Baxter’s dismayed expression split in two. The Apartment,
directed by Billy Wilder. © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. 1960. All rights reserved. ( Source | Accessed : April 4, 2021 )

Figure 3: In the apartment’s kitchen, Baxter demonstrates his culinary talent, draining spaghetti
onto a tennis racquet before serving it with meatballs. Fran is on the threshold of the kitchen. The
Apartment, directed by Billy Wilder. © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. 1960. All rights reserved. ( Source | Accessed : April 4, 2021 )

Style/Period(s):
Mid-century

Primary Material(s):
No Primary Material Assigned.

Function(s):
Workplace, Residential Structure

Related Website(s):

IMDB- Film Site | Accessed : April 4, 2021

Film's Wikipedia Site | Accessed : April 4, 2021

Movie-Locations.com | Accessed : April 4, 2021

On The Set of New York | Accessed : April 4, 2021

Significant Date(s):
20th Century, 1960

Additional Information:
Publications/Texts in Print:
Armstrong, Richard. Billy Wilder: American Film Realist. Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland
& Co, 2000.
Chandler, Charlotte. Nobody’s Perfect: Billy Wilder, a Personal Biography. New York: Simon &
Schuster, 2002.
Crowe, Cameron. Conversations with Wilder. New York: Knopf, 2001.
Di Ciaccia, Antonio and Massimo Recalcati. Jacques Lacan. Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2000.
Edwards, Natalie, Ben McCann, and Peter Poiana. “The Doubling of the Frame—Visual Art and
Discourse.” In Natalie Edwards, Ben McCann, and Peter Poiana (eds.), Framing French
Culture, 3–25. Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press, 2015.
Fontana, Franco. Il sistema organizzativo aziendale. Milan: FrancoAngeli, 1981/1999.
Forino, Imma. Uffici: Interni arredi oggetti. Turin: Einaudi, 2011.
Forino, Imma. “The Gift of Bathroom.” Abitare 536 (November–December 2013): 144.
Forino, Imma. La cucina: Storia culturale di un luogo domestico. Turin: Einaudi, 2019.
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Harmondsworth and New York:
Penguin Books, 1977.
Gemünden, Gerd. “Being a Mensch in the Administered World: The Apartment (1960).” In A
Foreign Affair: Billy Wilder’s American Films, 125–46. New York: Berghahn Books, 2008.
Grande, Maurizio. Billy Wilder. Milan: Moizzi, 1978. Edited by Robert Gaetano, Rome: Bulzoni,
2006.
Hollows, Joanne. “The Bachelor Dinner: Masculinity, Class and Cooking in Playboy, 1953–1961.”
Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 16, no. 2 (June 1, 2002): 143–55.
Kasarek, Hellmuth. Billy Wilder—Eine Nahaufnahme: Erweiterte und aktualisierte Sonderausgabe.
Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1992. Italian edition, Billy Wilder: Un viennese a Hollywood.
Translated by Michele Lauro. Milan: Mondadori, 1993.
Kirshner, Lewis A. “Rethinking Desire: The Object Petit A in Lacanian Theory.” Journal of the
American Psychoanalytic Association 53, no. 1 (March 1, 2005): 83–102.
Lichtman, Sarah, and Pat Kirkham. SCREEN INTERIORS: from Country Houses to Cosmic Heterotopias. New York, NY: AVA ACADEMIA, 2021.
Linguiti, Francesco and Marcello Colacino. L’inconscio cinema: Lo spettatore tra cinema, film e
psiche. Turin: Effatà Editrice, 2004.
Madsen, Axel. Billy Wilder. London: Secker & Warburg, 1968.
Manon, Hugh S. “Some Like It Cold: Fetishism in Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity.” Cinema
Journal 44, no.4 (Summer 2005): 18–43.
McCann, Ben. “What Trauner Did Next: The Continuation of a French Design Aesthetic in an
American Context.” French Cultural Studies 20, no.11 (February 2009): 65–81.
McCann, Ben. “The Return of Trauner: Late Style in 1970s and 1980s French Film Design.” In
Natalie Edwards, Ben McCann, and Peter Poiana (eds.), Framing French Culture, 157–73.
Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press, 2015
McGowan, Todd. “Looking for the Gaze: Lacanian Film Theory and Its Vicissitudes.” Cinema
Journal 42, no. 3 (Spring 2003): 27–47.
Phillips, Gene D. Some Like It Wilder: The Life and Controversial Films of Billy Wilder. Lexington:
University of Kentucky Press, 2010.
Sikov, Ed. On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder. New York: Hyperion, 1998.
Simsolo, Noël. Billy Wilder. Paris: Cahiers du cinema Sarl, 2007/2011.
Spector, Bert. “A Crack in the Cold War Consensus: Billy Wilder’s The Apartment.” Management &
Organizational History 4, no. 2 (May 1, 2009): 187–201.
Trauner, Alexandre. Alexandre Trauner: Décors de cinema. Paris: Flammarion, 1988.
Whyte, William H. The Organization Man. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1956.
Wilder, Billy and I. A. L. Diamond. The Apartment and the Fortune Cookie: Two Screenplays.
London: Studio View, 1971.
Wojcik Robertson, Pamela. The Apartment Plot: Urban Living in American Film and Popular
Culture, 1945 to 1975. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010.
Wolf, Werner. “Introduction: Frames, Framing and Framing Borders.” In Werner Wolf and Walter
Bernhart (eds.), Framing Borders in Literature and Other Media, 1–40. Amsterdam and New
York: Rodopi, 2006. Wright Mills, Charles. White Collars: The American Middle Class. London,
Oxford, and New York: Oxford University Press, 1951.

Building Address: 2 Broadway, Manhattan, New York, United States, West 69th Street, New York, NY, 52 New Street, Manhattan, New York, United States

Tags: 1960, 20th Century, apartment, mid-century, New York, Manhattan, NY, Office, Workplace, Film, Film set, fictional interiors, film set

Significant Dates: 1960, 20th century, Released June 30, 1960

Supporting Staff/ Designers: Tom Plews, Edward G. Boyle, Alexandre Trauner,

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