Movie Trivia Tuesday: The Apartment

Recently, I had the pleasure of seeing The Apartment, staring Jack Lemon, Shirley MacClain and Fred MacMurray for the first time and was stunned by how much I loved it. The story was interesting and well written for the screen with an interesting concept, the performances were all fantastic, everything about it was just wonderful. Considering how blown away I was by the quality of that movie, I couldn't help but chose it for this week's trivia.

• The name on the door next to Baxter's office is T.W.Plews. Tom Plews was the prop master

• The office Christmas party scene was actually filmed on December 23, 1959, so as to catch everybody in the proper holiday mood. Billy Wilder filmed almost all of it on the first take, stating to an observer, "I wish it were always this easy. Today, I can just shout 'action' and stand back"

• This is the first Best Picture Oscar winner to specifically refer to a previous winner, in this case two of them. First Grand Hotel, which Baxter attempts to watch on television but is too long delayed because of commercials. Bud's boss also refers to Bud and Fran having "a lost weekend" together in Bud's apartment, a reference to Billy Wilder's earlier Oscar winner, The Lost Weekend

• In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #80 Greatest Movie of All Time

• The nasal spray used by Jack Lemmon was actually milk. Real nasal spray would not have shown up on camera

• Billy Wilder claimed that he and I.A.L. Diamond already had Jack Lemmon in mind to play Baxter when they wrote the screenplay. In an interview years later, Lemmon confirmed this

• The studio wanted Groucho Marx for the role of Dr. Dreyfuss, but Billy Wilder said no, stating that he wanted an actor with more dramatic weight for the part

• C.C. Baxter is just a poor accountant. But inside his apartment are two authentic Tiffany Studios lamps, worth hardly anything when the film was made, but now worth between $30,000 and $40,000 each

• The film's classic last line was thought up by the writers at the last minute on-set.