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| United Artists | Release Date: December 16, 1961 |
Starring:
Arlene Francis, Hanns Lothar, Horst Buchholz, Howard St. John, Hubert von Meyerinck, James Cagney, Karl Lieffen, Leon Askin, Pamela Tiffin, Ralf Wolter
Summary:
In West Berlin during the Cold War, a Coca-Cola executive is given the task of taking care of his boss' socialite daughter.
Based on a one-act play by Ferenc Molnar, and scripted by Wilder and his frequent collaborator, I.A.L. Diamond, One Two Three is all-Cagney all the time. [11 May 2001, p.C2]
Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three is a fast-paced, high-pitched, hard-hitting, lighthearted farce crammed with topical gags and spiced with satirical overtones. Story is so furiously quick-witted that some of its wit gets snarled and smothered in overlap. But total experience packs a considerable wallop.
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Marvellous one-liners, of course, and Cagney, spitting out his lines with machine-gun rapidity in his final film until his belated appearance in 'Ragtime', is superb (and superbly backed by a fine cast). But the targets of Wilder's satire - go-getting, up-to-the-minute, consumer America versus the poverty and outdatedness of Communist culture - are rather too obvious.
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The gags are almost all on this level, and the little sops to sentiment are even worse.
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