On 1st November 1959, in New York, C.C. "Bud" Baxter is a popular clerk of "Consolidate Life", an insurance company with 31,259 employees. The secret of his success is a well located apartment where he lives that he sublets for his superiors, making him climb to the executive position of 2nd Administrative Assistant very early. He likes the elevator girl Fran Kubelik, a reserved woman considered a "jackpot" among the executives. Fran is the secret lover of the director Jeff D. Sheldrake, a married man that seduced her convincing that he will divorce his wife to stay with her. When Fran tries to commit suicide in Baxter's apartment after a meeting with Jeff, she stays with Baxter while recovering, and he falls in love for her. Later he has to come up to a decision between his excellent position in the company and his love. (IMDB)
Watch Movie Classic - The Apartment (1960)
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Plot Synopsis;
C. C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) is a lonely office drone for an insurance company in New York City. Four different company managers take turns commandeering Baxter's apartment, which is located on West 67th Street on the Upper West Side, for their various extramarital liaisons. Unhappy with the situation, but unwilling to challenge them directly, he juggles their conflicting demands while hoping to catch the eye of fetching elevator operator Miss Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine). Meanwhile the neighbors in the apartment building, a medical doctor and his wife, assume Baxter is a "good time Charlie" who brings different drunken women every night. Baxter accepts their criticism rather than reveal the truth.
The four managers write glowing reports about Baxter — a little too glowing, so personnel director Mr. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray) suspects something illicit behind the praise. Mr. Sheldrake lets Baxter's promotion go unchallenged on condition that Baxter offers his apartment to him as the sole customer. Still delighted about his promotion, Baxter asks Miss Kubelik to The Music Man after Sheldrake offers him tickets to the play when he has other plans. She agrees, then stands him up when Sheldrake takes her out for drinks. Later, on Christmas Eve, Baxter arrives home with a woman he has picked up in a local bar and is astounded to find Miss Kubelik in his bed, fully clothed and overdosed on sleeping pills. Mr. Sheldrake had borrowed Baxter's apartment for the evening and evidently left Miss Kubelik there.
Baxter sends his bar pickup home and he and his neighbour the doctor keep Miss Kubelik alive and safe without notifying the authorities. She explains that she had an affair with Mr. Sheldrake the previous summer, ended it when his wife returned from vacation then caved in to his appeals and promises later in the fall. When Sheldrake offered her money instead of a Christmas present she realized the ugliness of the situation and tried to commit suicide. The act shows a startling side of her usually sunny personality. Baxter tries to comfort her with assurances of Sheldrake's concern but she refuses to speak to him on the telephone.
Kubelik recuperates in Baxter's apartment for two days, long enough for her taxi driver brother-in-law to assume the worst of Baxter and come to blows. Sheldrake's catty secretary, one of his former mistresses, finally "educates" Mrs. Sheldrake about her husband's infidelities. Faced with divorce, Sheldrake moves into a room at his athletic club and continues to string Kubelik along while he enjoys his newfound bachelorhood. Baxter finally takes a stand when Sheldrake demands the apartment for New Year's Eve, which results in Baxter quitting the firm. Kubelik realizes that Baxter is the man who truly loves her and she leaves Sheldrake on New Year's Eve to be with Baxter that evening and runs to him. They end as two misfits, both out of a job, playing a game of gin rummy. When Baxter declares his love for Kubelik, her reply is the now-famous final line of the movie: "Shut up and deal."
(Wikipedia)
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