Blu-ray Release: The Apartment

Blu-ray Release Date: Dec. 11, 2018
Price: Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Arrow/MVD

In 1960, following on from the success of their collaboration on Some Like it Hot, director Billy Wilder (Ace in the Hole, Sunset Boulevard) reteamed with actor Jack Lemmon (The Odd Couple, The Fortune Cookie) for what many consider the pinnacle of their respective careers: The Apartment.

C.C. Bud Baxter (Lemmon) is a lowly Manhattan office drone with a lucrative sideline in renting out his apartment to adulterous company bosses and their mistresses. When Bud enters into a similar arrangement the firm’s personnel director, J.D. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray, Double Indemnity), his career prospects begin to look up… and up. But when he discovers that Sheldrake’s mistress is Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine, Irma la Douce), the girl of his dreams, he finds himself forced to choose between his career and the woman he loves…

Winner of five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, the insanely overrated but still solid film features a wealth of Hollywood s finest talent on both sides of the camera at the top of their game. By turns cynical, heart-warming and hilarious, Wilder’s film is presented her in an  all-new, 4K-restored edition.

As usual, Arrow provides a wealth of bonus materials, which include the following:

• Brand new 4K restoration of the film from the original camera negative produced by Arrow Films exclusive for this release
• Original uncompressed PCM mono audio
• Optional 5.1 remix in lossless DTS-HD Master Audio
• Optional English SDH subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Audio commentary with film producer and historian Bruce Block
• The Key to the Apartment, a new appreciation of the film by film historian Philip Kemp
• Select scene commentary by Philip Kemp
• The Flawed Couple, a new video essay by filmmaker David Cairns on the collaborations between Billy Wilder and Jack Lemmon
• A Letter to Castro, a new interview with actress Hope Holiday
• The Writer Speaks: Billy Wilder, an archival interview from the Writers Guild of America s Oral Histories series
• Inside the Apartment, a half-hour making-of featurette from 2007 including interviews with Shirley MacLaine, executive producer Walter Mirisch, and others
• Magic Time: The Art of Jack Lemmon, an archive profile of the actor from 2007
• Theatrical trailer
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Ignatius Fitzpatrick