The Lost Weekend (1945)

Billy Wilder is the greatest director. His “The Apartment” is the best romantic comedy film of all time. But check out Best Picture winner “The Lost Weekend,” the 1945 stark black-and-white story of a writer hitting bottom and finding yet more muck to dig through as he battles alcoholism, the kind where the guy knows he can’t breathe without a shot. Ray Milland –- I only ever knew him from “Escape to Witch Mountain” –- is Don, the insecure failure with just enough cash to buy just enough booze to finish ruining his life. But, this is 1940s-era movie, so there has to be an oh-so-devoted dame, and we get it with Jane Wyman as a magazine researcher. (Me, I thought the other lady of the film, a call girl, played by Doris Dowling, seemed far closer to earth than Wyman's saint.) Milland plays his part with a desperate bitterness and a swagger that every drunk knows is so well acted that no one would ever know he’s drunk. Wilder knowingly keeps those bottles in focus. The “upper” ender vibes wrong as if the studio didn't want audiences going home with too much a taste of reality. A-

Double Indemnity (1944)

“Double Indemnity” is the film noir classic before there was such a genre. It forced extramarital sex and murder onto 1940s America, a place not used to seeing its own sin displayed onscreen. It’s a miracle the film ever got made. (Confused? If you tune in Fox News or vote Republican, then you know all about ignoring sin and fact. Please, go away.) I digress. This classic follows a greedy salesman (Fred MacMurray) out to dump unneeded car insurance on a rich prick, but instead gets sucked in by the man’s amoral wife (Barbara Stanwyck, has there been a deadlier/cooler actress?) who sees opportunity: Off hubby, get fucked on the side, and get rich. I will not spill plot, or the inevitable (government-forced) ending, but marvel at every beautiful cruel act. Billy Wilder made this gem, and he knows gems, and this may be his best. The lead actors kill as immoral shits you want to see die, but truly fantasize about. Best asset: Regular Hollywood tough guy Edward G. Robinson as the hero and book nerd! Dig his angry geek tirade against low-IQ insurance dweebs, and witness acting at its greatest. One of the true Hollywood greats, a must watch. A+

Five Graves to Cairo (1943)

Billy Wilder’s World II spy drama “Five Graves to Cairo” starts off grim as hell: A Brit armored tank drives aimlessly through the Egyptian desert, its crew dead except for one man who falls from the vehicle onto the desert sand. John Bramble (Franchot Tone) stumbles and then crawls his way to a nearby town, to a hotel called the Empress of Britain. Recall, the Brits ruled this land, lock, stock and key. But the Brits scrammed. The Nazis are in, full force. The sun-stroked Bramble is certainly dead. Except the hotel owner (Akim Tamiroff) takes pity, and sets Bramble up as the dead-by-bombing waiter Davos. Bramble as Davos learns the latter was a Nazi spy, so now Bramble can play the espionage card triple against Rommel (Erich von Stroheim). This is a great yarn, suspenseful, fun, gritty, and full of the era’s patriotic Us-Against-Them/Country-First propaganda, up to a fault: See the damsel-in-distress (Anne Baxter) of the pic is -– SPOILER ALERT! -– doomed because she dares put family first. It smacks not so much of war-time tragedy, but a sexist streak absent from Wilder in lighter classics a la “Apartment.” B+

The Apartment (1960)

Billy Wilder’s “The Apartment” is the perfect romantic comedy-drama. The set-up: Jack Lemmon – never better, even in “Some Like it Hot” -- is C.C. Baxter, a cog in a massive insurance company machine. He’s a low-level drone, but a wicked tool to the big guys upstairs. The tool’s tool: His apartment is a fuck pad for the big bosses to bring their on-the-side girls. One of the girls is elevator operator Fran, played by the mesmerizing Shirley MacLaine, and poor sad sack C.C., well, he digs her. But Fred McMurray – Mr. Clean Cut Disney Film Man – is the prick cheating on his wife with Fran, and any another gal who comes his way. When Fran attempts suicide, it’s C.C. who saves her. The rest of the story is manna. Lemmon’s C.C. is a treat of a man, a nice guy who wants to move ahead, willing to cut corners, but still goofy enough to use a tennis racquet as spaghetti strainer. MacLaine is divine as a woman who can’t see herself ever truly falling in love, her smarts ignored by piggish men. Acting, script, every gag set-up, every line delivery is perfect. I love this film. A+