Great performances by Shirley MacClaine and Jack Lemmon, especially Lemmon ! This heartbreaking story of a man, who just wanted to live a normal life. Great direction by Wilder, and a stunningly beautiful cinematography of New York in black and white. One of the top comedies of the movies.

DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1949)

One of the best film noirs. Barbra Stanwyck gives a chilling performance as the wife who wants to murder her husband with the insurance guy, perfectly played by Fred MacMurray. Wilder´s direction is top-notch and the cinematography is again state of the art.

Witness to the Prossecution (?)

Charles Laughton´s best performance. Marlene as evil as can be. I was so struck by the ending...

And yours?

I deliberately avoided the Marilyn Monroe things (crikey on a bikey - I've never even seen SOME LIKE IT HOT), and the idea of things like IRMA LA DOUCE never appealed to me (colourful froth set in Paris really turns me off).

But despite my initial, unfounded gut-reaction to IRMA, I'll be watching it this week, and will post my thoughts.

Graham, you must catch "SOME LIKE IT HOT" sometime. Its a classic comedy.

I like so many Wilder films it would be tough to pick a favorite. But I'm going to venture a title that might surprise you.

For as near-perfect as Stalag 17 or Double Indemnity are, or as great as my friend thinks Some Like It Hot is (I like it warm myself), for me, Wilder's finest moment, the one time he hit us with full gale force and made one of the harshest, most raw, most cynical films in US history, has got to be Ace in the Hole (aka The Big Carnival). I doubt it was a success of any kind, and given Kirk Douglas's hysterics and some of the plot details, it even goes over the top, but the impact it had on me when I first saw it (projected in 35mm--it probably doesn't have the same force on TV) has only been matched by a few other films. Wilder may be more glib and entertaining, certainly funnier, in other places, but here Wilder is undiluted and its both amazing and devastating.

My favorite, though, is THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. Wilder and co-writer I.A.L. Diamond achieved something almost unprecedented with this film: a murder-mystery with genuine feeling -- which is why Homes purists don't care much for it. They like their hero cool, perfect and invulnerable: in short, a two-dimensional figure. Wilder and Diamond dared to make him three-dimensional, and that, in the eyes of the Baker St. Irregulars, is unforgiveable.

It's funny; most of Wilder's most popular films fall somewhere in between the two: bleaker than SHERLOCK HOLMES, but not as bleak as ACE IN THE HOLE. SUNSET BOULEVARD, STALAG 17, DOUBLE INDEMINTY, et al are great, don't get me wrong, but they're popular for the vesry reason that they offer compromises to make them palatable to the wider masses, while the other two films don't.