30 Years of Brilliance: 1930-1959
Billy Wilder was one of the greatest writer/directors Hollywood ever produced, and he once summed up his career in a towering example of understatement:'I just made pictures I would've liked to see.' Yet Wilder is behind some of the most memorable images and lines in movie history, whither it be Marilyn Monroe standing over a subway grate in that famously billowing white dress, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis as cross-dressing musicians in 'Some Like It Hot' in 1959, or Fred MacMurray's convincing portrayal of the insurance salesman turned killer in 'Double Indemnity' in 1944. He was even responsible for making Greta Garbo laugh in her first comedy, 'Ninotchka', in 1939.
Wilder created one of the most brilliant and eclectic canons of work in U.S. cinema, his films characterized by their tight plots, smart characters, and clever dialogue. Unusually, perhaps for a director so associated with comedy, Wilder consistently pushed the limits of U.S. censorship of the day with his provocative choice of subject matter that included adultery ('Double Indemnity'), alcoholism ('The Lost Weekend'), and the younger,kept man ('Sunset Boulevard).
Born in 1906 in a part of Austria-Hungary later absorbed into Poland, Wilder's mother nicknamed him 'Billy' out of her fascination with U.S. culture. After ending up in Berlin working as a newspaper stringer, the young Wilder discovered an interest in films. He became a screenwriter in the German film industry, but in the wake of Adolf Hitler's rise to power he moved to Paris, where he made his directorial debut with 'Mauvaise Graine' in 1934. When he later arrived in Hollywood speaking no Engliah, he was quick to study both the language and form of the movies there, becoming a notable screenwriter with such titles as Joe May's 'Music in the Air' in 1934 and A. Edward Sullivan's 'Champagne Waltz' in 1937.
Perhaps because he was not a native English speaker, Wilder always liked to write with a partner. With Charles Brackett, he penned a string of classic comedies including 'Ninotchka' in 1939 and 'Ball of Fire' in 1941. He was then promoted to writer and director for a script he had written with Brackett,'The Major and the Minor' in 1942. Teaming up with crime writer Raymond Chandler to adapt James M. Cain's novella gave Wilder his first classic, the film noir 'Double Indemnity' in 1944. This landmark film established such noirish conventions as the use of atmospheric 'venetian blind' lighting and voice-over narration. For the rest of the 1940's Wilder rode a streak of hits and acclaim, including 'The Lost Weekend' in 1945 and the much celebrated 'Sunset Boulevard' in 1950, which marked his final collaboration with Brackett.
Latterly, Wilder's comedy became more cynical, his dramatic interludes more intense, and his artistic confidence heightened with the ability to write, produce, and direct titled of his own creation. Out of the gates in this new chapter was a traged that missed an audience 'Ace in the Hole' in 1951, the beloved 'Sabrina' in 1954, 'The Seven Year Itch' in 1955, and his first writing collaboration with the other important partner of his career, I.A.L. Diamond 'Love in the Afternoon', in 1957.
During his career, Wilder won two Oscars for directing and three Oscars (out of nine nominations) for screenwriting ('The Lost Weekend'; 'Sunset Boulevard'; 'The Apartment'), a record only surpassed in 1997, fittingly, by that other great writer/director Woody Allen.
