Christmas in the Movies Everyday Through December
The New York City corporate headquarters of an insurance company is the perfect setting. Large, imposing, impersonal, watching the bottom line and how to come out on top. By playing by another's rules hoping to gain an advantage. Wilder sets the stage of the most un-Christmas kind of story about learning to love and care in spite of the environment. It's a story of principles and morals, ethics and compassion, told at the most wonderful time of the year.
Christmas is the counterpoint in The Apartment. It is Christmastime in the City, competing with the maliciousness, the manipulation, the thoughtlessness of others, the pure greed and utter devastation -- as it happens when the seven deadly sins compete with the fruits of the spirit.
Wilder does a wonderful job reminding us that it is Christmastime but he also shows how the season is seriously corrupted by the participants. It is the characters gut-reactions to their immediate challenges that cause disaster. The Christmas party at the office. The bar that is open on Christmas Eve and C.C. Baxter's chance to "ring-a-ding" for himself, like his philandering executive buddies.
Merry Christmas.