Billy Wilder, American Film Realist, Richard Armstrong, McFarland & Company,

Inc. 2004, £21.95 172pp, ISBN 0786421193 paperback (hardback edition originally 2000).

I had mixed responses whilst reading this book. For a start there are not many studies on Billy Wilder, so a new one is welcome. Wilder is clearly one of the great Hollywood directors. Among the films discussed in this book there are several of the finest Hollywood masterworks, including Double Indemnity (1944), Sunset Boulevard (1950), Some Like It Hot (1959) and The Apartment (1960). Billy Wilder's Academy Award record speaks volumes about his work. Thirteen of his films appear in the listings, including several multiple Oscar-winners. Ephraim Katz in his Film Encyclopaedia reckons Wilder's films grossed over a $100 million during his career, and that included the period of Hollywood's steep decline and was before the mammoth box office of the modern blockbuster. If you think that dollars and Oscars are not the real arbiters of cinematic greatness, then note that Wilder (like John Ford) has two films in the Library of Congress's listing of the '25 most important US films'. This is an indication of the critical status Wilder enjoys.

This book discusses two of the films that Wilder scripted in Hollywood and 14 of those he directed there. Wilder had a career before Hollywood, but even in tinsel town his total output is more than fifteen scripted films and the direction of 26 films. So this is a partial look. Armstrong does make frequent reference to the earlier volume Journey Down Sunset Boulevard (1979) by Neil Sinyard and Adrian Turner. However that book is now out of print and was written before Wilder finished filmmaking.

The films that Armstrong discusses are important and there are really interesting and perceptive comments. As I read about films like The Lost Weekend (1945) or Ace in the Hole (1951) I remembered the films and the analysis bought out strands, motifs and meanings that were really interesting. The book also has discussion and detail about production approaches, the use of stars and Wilder's penchant for location shooting at a time when it was unusual. All this is informative and useful for teachers. However, there is a problem with the presentation in the book. I suspect this is something that should have been picked up by an editor because the writer is just too close to the films. A lot of the commentary requires the reader to have a fairly clear memory of the film (or be watching it). The two chapters on the films Wilder scripted do not provide plot summaries for the film under discussion. The films that do have accompanying summaries of their plots are frequently too skimpy for the level of detailed analysis on offer. I frequently had to stop reading and remember or check some detail to be clear about the point being argued.

As an example Armstrong frequently discusses both the film characters and the persona of the actor playing them. However, these are sometimes not clearly identified. Doris Dowling plays a minor character Gloria in The Lost Weekend, but this is not clearly stated. Armstrong also suggests that the film has a happy ending and then quotes a comment about its 'ambiguous ending'. Yet he fails to explain this discrepancy. My particular pet hates [admittedly minor] are the use of 'Wilderian', and the fact that Sunset Boulevard appears throughout the book as Sunset Blvd, though the abbreviation is never actually clarified for the reader. It is this last aspect that makes me feel that part of the problem is down to inadequate editing from the publishers.

I also think there is an analytical problem with Armstrong's approach, though this is more complex. In the introduction he justifies the selection of the films in the book by arguing that films directed by Wilder and set in Europe do not produce the same level of cinematic realism, which Armstrong thinks is one of Wilder's important qualities. Regarding One, Two, Three (1961, set in Berlin) he writes, "the Brandenberg Gate, resonating with history, is merely a handy trump from a compendium of screenwriting clichés . . .". It is part of his larger premise that Wilder's film work successfully evokes the US society to which he migrated, but not the European societies which he left. I have to say that I did not find this argument convincing. It is an interesting idea but it needs developing considerably. The quality of Wilder's films does vary, as with most directors. But I think there are more complex factors at work here -- one being the Hollywood system itself.

And this viewpoint means that Armstrong fails to discuss (amongst other films) Five Graves to Cairo (1943), The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) and Avanti! (1972). I think these are all