Initial Thoughts on Wilder

It's hard to peg Billy Wilder in one specific category. You could say Hitchcock worked mostly in the suspense genre, while Ford worked mostly in westerns, but perhaps no other film maker mastered almost every Hollywood genre better than Billy Wilder (Although Howard Hawks might be a good argument.)

Wilder brought a great sense of cynicism to every film he was in. Sometimes that cynicism was unbelievably harsh like with "Ace in the Hole" or "Sunset BLVD." (Still the single greatest film about Hollywood ever). Yet when he hooked up with writing partner I.A.L Diamond you could sense a bit of a tender side particularly with romantic comedies such as "Love in the Afternoon" (A tribute to his mentor Ernst Lubitcsh) and "The Apartment". With those films you could still feel the Wilder cynicism shine through, but you felt he had a little bit more sympathy towards the characters situations.

Of course Wilder is often sometimes overlooked as the brilliant director in favor of his brilliant dialogue. Even before he directed his first film, he was responsible for co-writing some of Hollywood's best comedies, among them Lubitcsh's "Ninotchka" and Hawks' "Ball of Fire".

The first Wilder film I ever saw was probably his most non-Wilder film he ever directed, it was "The Spirit of St. Louis" which was a pretty straight forward story about Charles Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic. I watched it at a young age when classic movies were still a fairly new experience for me and I only knew one thing, and that was I really liked Jimmy Stewart who stars in the film.

Time went by until I saw my second Wilder film which was "Some Like it Hot". I recognized that the name was indeed the same director who made "The Spirit of St. Louis" and suffice it to say after viewing it, I was amazed that both films were made by the same man.

I never knew the people behind the camera when I first started watching movies, I just picked them at random, which meant Billy Wilder just sort of snuck up on me, it didn't matter which movie I'd watch in those early days, "Stalag 17", "The Lost Weekend", "Sabrina", "Double Indemnity", all were directed by Billy Wilder, it's as if he was some sort of chameleon where every film he made was different from the last.

To this day I am still discovering more of Billy Wilder's films, having just viewed both the newly restored "Ace in the Hole" (Which may be my favorite Kirk Douglas performance ever) and his latter day masterpiece "The Private Life of Sherlock Homes" where he attempts to give the world famous detective a human side.

Despite the fact that most of his films are always different from the rest, you can always be assured that they all have one thing in common and that is the great Wilder wit. His dialogue has always been far and away the best that classic Hollywood ever had to offer. When people describe that quick, smart, sassy dialogue from classic films, more than often they are describing a Billy Wilder film.

This month in April I will be examining some more of Wilder's films so won't you join me it'll be a hoot. I'm BACK BABY!!!!