In this follow-up to the enormously successful Some Like It Hot, Billy Wilder deploys his comic lens to lampoon double standards behind the sterile facade of corporate culture, again focusing on the hypocritical sexual mores of Americans. Jack Lemmon plays a nondescript insurance clerk who gains entry into the upper echelons of the firm (and a coveted key to the executive washroom) in exchange for the use of his dumpy bachelor pad as a trysting spot for the big boys. In a role that continues to earn kudos (witness Best Actor Kevin Spacey’s homage at this year’s Academy Awards), Lemmon’s C. C. Baxter regains some of his tarnished idealism when he becomes enamored of the elevator girl (MacLaine), paramour of one of the top executives (MacMurray). Noted at the time for its frank dialogue and open look at infidelity, The Apartment earned Wilder and writing partner I. A. L. Diamond an Oscar for their original screenplay.