Cinema
One, Two, Three
Billy Wilder · 1961
Synopsis
West Berlin, 1961. C. R. MacNamara, the local Coca-Cola director, wants to open up the Eastern market and is negotiating with three Soviet commissars. His boss in Atlanta, W. P. Hazeltine, entrusts his seventeen-year-old daughter Scarlett to him, on a trip through Europe. The girl disappears every evening, and finally announces that she has secretly married Otto Ludwig Piffl, a young Communist from East Berlin. The parents arrive the next day at noon.
Context
Filming had begun in Berlin in the summer of 1961; the Wall went up during the night of 13 August, and the Brandenburg Gate scenes were shot in Munich, in front of a replica built at the Bavaria studios. Joan Crawford, who had joined the board of Pepsi-Cola, had written to Wilder to reproach him for the prominence given to the rival brand; in reply he slipped in allusions to Pepsi. The film was released in a city cut in two and was a failure; Finland banned it from 1962 to 1986.
Who it is for
A comedy of about an hour and fifty minutes, delivered at a very rapid pace. It is James Cagney's last role before twenty years' absence, until his return in 1981.
Prizes and reception
A failure on its release, nominated for the Oscar for cinematography, it was successfully reissued in 1985 in France and West Germany.
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