http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One,_Two,_Three
Has anyone else seen this movie? It is the most hilarious movie I’ve ever watched, IMO.
I saw it when I was 5 or 6 years old (that would be back when it was still a new movie). I don’t remember much about it, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the most hilarious movie I’ve ever seen.
Yup, saw it a couple of years ago. IIRC it was James Cagney selling CocaCola in West Berlin. There was something about an umlaut.
You should probably check out some of Billy’s other work.
He wrote and directed Some Like It Hot (one of the best comedies ever made) and The Seven Year Itch (featuring the famous Marilyn Monroe dress) and wrote Ninotchka.
Definitely one of my favorite movies, too. Maybe it’s because I’m from Berlin, but there’s something about the breakneck speed and dialog of this movie that sets it apart. Awesome!
In that case, you need to see His Girl Friday.
Will do, thanks!
Great film. I still wish Cagney hadn’t done those two films in the 1980s so he could have finished his career with a masterpiece.
Excellent film.
Although the timing for release (building of the Wall) was most likely the cause of the box office failure at the time, when I lived in Berlin it had already become a classic cult favorite and was often shown on television there.
Like Pitchmeister mentions above, my friends in Berlin also love this film; maybe as a time capsule of the way it was shortly before the Wall was built.
Madcap, silly and fast-paced, it is one of those films you can watch over and over and still pick up on lines you might have missed in earlier viewings.
Horst Buchholz, the young German actor that Cagney supposedly loathed (according to this Wiki link) went on to become a pretty big movie/TV star in Germany.
Plus there’s Red Buttons as a military cop, mocking Cagney’s voice, to Cagney’s face.
Never heard of this before; just watched it. Totally hilarious!
“Herr Kapellmeister! More rock and roll!”
When I used to post here more often, I recommended this film many many times. It always makes me laugh. It is definitely up there with my favorite top 10 films. and I enjoy OneTwoThree more than Some Like It Hot. (Blasphemy, I know). I introduced a group of friends to this movie at a DVD watching party recently. So much fun to share it.
I’ve seen it about half a dozen times. Like DMark says, you can watch it multiple times and still pick up new things from it each time. Cagney is a genius.
Best of all, IMHO, the movie gets steadily funnier as it keeps going.
This is one of my top four favourite films of all time. Pitchmeister knows this because he introduced me to it. [Thanks!]
Yeah - I was going to mention the Wall going up. I believe it was actually during filming and the Berlin shoot was forced to move to Munich (including building a replica Brandenburg Gate there). In terms of its reception, yes, suddenly this comedy, which relied on the strange historical circumstances (divided but still traversable Berlin) just wasn’t funny any more. The cold war was just a little too frosty by the time it was released.
It’s Fraülein. With an umlaut!
Yes, I’ve seen it & enjoyed it. It’s definitely a product of its time but I remember those days.
Time to watch it again; on Netflix Streaming, of course.
Too late to edit - apologies for bad German typo - it is of course Fräulein not Fraülein (with the umlaut!).
Billy Wilder was the most cynical person ever to get to a position of importance in Hollywood. Lots of people were cynical, of course, but he knew how to work the system and get his movies made. He directed his own scripts at a time when that was still unusual, so the cynicism could go onto the screen unfiltered.
Ace in the Hole will make your jaw drop when you consider it was made in 1951. A Foreign Affair was made in the rubble of Berlin in 1948 when everyone wanted to pretend that we were Boy Scouts during the war. And he tried to destroy what was left of the legend of Hollywood glory in Sunset Blvd.
He tailed off during the 60s, whose humor he never comprehended, but he had a great two-decade run. Here’s his IMDb page. Start with Midnight (1939) and work forward.
All right, I guess I’ll be the outlier. A friend recommended One, Two, Three to me a few years ago but I thought it just fell flat. Didn’t even finish it.