Some Like It Wilder: The Life and Controversial Films of Billy Wilder

Epilogue

 epilogue A touch of Class The American public was tired of the cinematic chocolate éclairs that had been stuffed down their throats. They had a great desire for knowledge of life as it is lived. I tried to give it to them in my own way. —Erich von Stroheim Hollywood is a factory town for mass production, out of which something good comes now and then. —Billy Wilder The export of European film artists to Hollywood in the 1930s, write Gerald Mast and Bruce Kawin, bled the European film industry “as steadily as a Dracula’s kiss.” But this exodus “would inject its powerful juices into the American film” for decades to come.1 Billy Wilder certainly did his part to enrich American cinema. He learned during his long career in Hollywood that a director had to work hard not just to achieve artistic independence but also to keep it. Wilder went his own way in Hollywood and made films that suited his own talent, taste, and temperament. He challenged the fundamentally conformist cinema of Hollywood, bringing to his films a sophisticated middle European wit and mature view of human nature. Still, Wilder often had difficulty in securing studio backing for a project he had developed on his own. He had to negotiate with movie executives who were wary of providing capital for a property that departed in varying degrees from the safe, commercial subject matter they tended to favor. Yet it was precisely the risky, offbeat project that often captured a large audience ; movies like The Apartment bear out this contention. Such a film is not a gigantic spectacle concerned with sinking ocean liners or torching office towers. In the age of cookie-cutter fare at the multiplex, this type of film relies more on the director’s creativity than on fancy technology. “You have to be flexible,” Wilder said. “When wide-screen came in, I considered making the love story of two dachshunds. You see, I try to make Some LIke It WILder  pictures that are not for cinema gourmets. I don’t do cinema; I make movies —for amusement. I’m making a picture for a middle-class audience, for the people that you see on the subway; and I can only hope they’ll like it.”2 It has often been said that some films age; some films date. A substantial number of the films made by Wilder belong to the first category; they demonstrate his respect for the creative freedom that he worked so hard to win. Wilder was philosophical about the ups and downs of filmmaking. “If I were to sum up my career, I would say that I am a competent journeyman who has gotten lucky once in a while.” He explained, Sometimes a film comes off and sometimes it doesn’t and you can’t always predict the outcome, which I think is clear from some of the films I’ve made. Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t say that for this failure I have this excuse and for that failure I have that excuse, but for this big hit I take all the credit! I have had good luck, too, and sometimes I have muffed it when it came my way. But look at the total canon of a supreme dramatist like George Bernard Shaw. He wrote dozens of plays of which you remember six or seven, which are still being played in the repertory. The rest are never performed. Wilder was instrumental in bringing a mature treatment of sex to Hollywood films, particularly in his comedies. Writing of the films Wilder coauthored with I. A. L. Diamond, Joanne Yeck notes, “Witty dialogue and sophisticated situations marked their stories. They openly challenged the long-standing assumption that all Hollywood products should be family oriented, and provided moviegoers with tasteful, adult entertainment.”3 Wilder was not aware that Buddy Buddy would be his last picture. He said at the time, “I have absolutely no intention of retiring.” Using yet another baseball metaphor, he added, “This here ball game is going into extra innings.”4 But film directing had become “a young man’s sport,” and Wilder was a septuagenarian. Furthermore, in the wake of the debacle of Buddy Buddy, with the studio gossip spreading that Wilder was over the hill, no studio would grant him the right of final cut. His demand for final cut— a prerogative that he had enjoyed throughout his career—forced him into retirement. “I was retired...