Billy Wilder wrote everything he directed and won three Academy Awards for screenwriting. He worked in two long partnerships, first with Charles Brackett and later with I A L Diamond, and considered writing the primary job with directing as protection of the script.
His rule was that the audience should be two steps ahead of one character and one step behind another, which keeps them working. Some Like It Hot’s final line was a placeholder nobody expected to keep, and it is now one of the most famous endings in comedy.
Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity and The Apartment all begin near the end and work backward, which he used to remove suspense so the audience could watch for how instead of what.
Billy WilderAn ambitious insurance clerk lends his apartment to executives for their affairs, until he falls for the boss's mistress at Christmas. The Apartment is Billy Wilder's 1960 American comedy-drama about an ambitious insurance company clerk who lends his Manhattan apartment…
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder1957 Billy Wilder courtroom drama from Agatha Christie. Charles Laughton as defense barrister, Marlene Dietrich as the wife.
Billy WilderWilder's 1959 cross-dressing comedy. Lemmon and Curtis on the run, Monroe in her last great performance.
Billy WilderChandler co-wrote with Wilder. Double Indemnity is the Billy Wilder-directed Paramount Pictures noir that became the canonical template for the genre's mature middle period.
Billy WilderWilder's 1950 Hollywood gothic. Sunset Boulevard is the Billy Wilder film noir that became Hollywood's most lacerating film about itself.
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