The Apartment (1960 Billy Wilder)

Jack is so great - it may be his best performance - just watching him doing something simple like tidy up the apartment or make telephone calls is riveting. As is Shirley MacLaine. They lost the Oscars to Burt Lancaster in Elmer Gantry and Elizabeth Taylor in Butterfield 8 (Cameron Crowe: "There have been few greater Oscar injustices").

It's Calvin Clifford Baxter.

Some superb long takes, not a wasted shot in the whole film, only the essential material was shot (it was edited in a week and only three feet of film were left over, which makes Daniel Mandell's Oscar win quite funny).

It's a masterclass in superb writing (adding -wise to everything, use of 'ring-a-ding-ding', 'you'll end up with egg foo young on your face') and construction - the plotting is just brilliant and the set-ups are beautiful e.g. Shirley's 'I'm not very good at spelling'.

Shirley's coat is lime green, according to Cameron 'a great bit of casting' - it belonged to Audrey Wilder.

"I also knew that Shirley MacLaine was going to be fine - just leave her alone. And she was very good."

Not sure if this is genuine - no mention of it in McGilligan's exhaustive biog

A Tom & Jerry mix is a Christmastime cocktail, a variant of egg nog with added brandy or rum.

A film it's possible to enjoy over and over again - often finding something new - as evidenced by the fact it was only in March that we last watched it!