MikePadgett.com

• Director: Billy Wilder
• United States, 1944
• 

In some life insurance policies, where the policyholder dies in untypical circumstances, the policy pays out double. It’s called double indemnity, and when old Mr Dietrichson gets bumped off in revenge for the heinous crimes of being cranky and middle-aged, it’s made to look like he fell off a moving train.

It follows that the real protagonist in this movie is implausibility. That a housewife with a bad wig could persuade a worldly insurance salesman into helping her to off her husband. That our friendly local salesman would have no qualms about strangling a man with whom he has no beef. That the filmmakers thought a 23-year old actress would pass for the innocent teenage daughter.

Double Indemnity is creatively shot, and as we can expect from Wilder, the script is witty and sharp - indeed, Edward G Robinson positively thrives in his role as the shrewd invesigator Keyes. However, and perhaps this complaint is all too modern, the plot lacks purpose and the characters lack motivation, so the movie is robbed of any real tension.

• Director: Billy Wilder
• United States, 1959
• 

What is it with Billy Wilder movies? For me, only the unprecedented content made The Apartment stand out. Now I find that this highly esteemed comedy does very little for me either.

Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe deliver some reasonably fizzy dialogues; there are lots of lukewarm references to old gangster flicks; the finale suggests an unusually tolerant attitude towards cross-dressing. But what else, dare I ask?

Some Like It Hot is very watchable and occasionally fun. But should a movie’s reputation rest on one-liners, or an isolated memorable scene? I mean, maybe it broke the mould in 1959, but today it just seems mouldy.

• Director: Billy Wilder
• United States, 1960
• 

Wilder’s comedy about a clerk who lets his bosses use his apartment for trysts in exchange for career advancement has some unusually dark moments but on the whole it’s pretty safe.

It’s not especially difficult to see how this movie broke down barriers in 1960, tackling sexual harassment and gender equality with a refreshing viewpoint at the beginning of a decade in which much more would be done. In doing so, however, some of the requisite plausibility has gone out of the apartment window.

Jack Lemmon and Shirley Maclaine work well together, bringing a special humanity to some horrific office sets that make me immensely grateful for my own workspace.