25 Years Ago This Month: September 1986

I have been remiss in keeping regular posts going and I completely forgot to get this entry together for the start of the month. Nevertheless, it is still September, so I haven't really missed my deadline.

Sort of oddly, the source I use for finding movie release dates has only a small handful of movies that opened in September 1986.

The most significant release of the month must have been David Lynch's weird and wild Blue Velvet, a story which begins by showing us a nice normal suburban American neighborhood with white picket fences, and then has our hero discover a severed ear in a grassy field. That ear only hints at the thematic darkness beneath the surface that would become a hallmark of Lynch's work. It contains one of the late Dennis Hopper's greatest performances, as well as excellent work from Isabella Rossellini, Laura Dern and Kyle MacLachlan.

Classic Movie Review: Billy Wilder's The Apartment

Billy Wilder made a great career out of handling delicate subject matter in surprisingly frank ways. From murder for profit and marital infidelity in Double Indemnity (1944) to sexual politics in Some Like It Hot (1959). In his last great film, The Apartment (1960), he deftly crosses the serious subjects often present in his previous directorial efforts (most, if not all, of which he also wrote) such as infidelity, sexual politics, attempted suicide with a light-hearted and well-intentioned touch. This film, which pushes its 2 hour running time along at a brisk pace, brought Wilder his second directing Oscar, his third for screenplay and his first as a credited producer of a Best Picture winner (his The Lost Weekend won Best Picture, but Wilder did not win a statuette).

Jack Lemmon earned his third Oscar nomination as C.C. Baxter, a low-level accountant in a firm that boasts a city’s worth of employees in one building (so many that the start and finish times of the workday are staggered by floor so as not to overrun the elevators). He is a pushover for several executives to whom he lends the key to his Upper East Side bachelor pad so they can engage in their extra-marital flings. He enjoys a carefree lifestyle and the eventual benefits of being in the good graces of company execs until he witnesses firsthand the damage that can be inflicted on the young women who are led to believe (however naively) that these men might leave their wives.