(From Wikipedia)…

The film is set in West Berlin during the Cold War, but before the construction of the Berlin Wall, and politics is predominant in the setup. Diamond and Wilder’s social satire and sharp humor skewers targets on all sides of the divide —capitalists and communists, Americans, Germans, and Russians, men and women alike exhibit their own weaknesses and quirky foibles. As in Avanti! (1972), the humour of the film is partly based on the contrast between people from different cultures.

C. R. “Mac” MacNamara is a high-ranking executive in the Coca-Cola Company, assigned to West Berlin after a business fiasco a few years earlier in the Middle East (about which he is still bitter). Nevertheless, Mac is angling to become head of Western European Coca-Cola Operations, based in London. After working on an arrangement to introduce Coke into the Soviet Union, Mac receives a call from his boss, W.P. Hazeltine in Atlanta. Scarlett Hazeltine, the boss’s hot-blooded 17-year-old socialite daughter, is coming to Berlin and Mac receives the unenviable task of taking care of this young whirlwind.

An expected two-week stay develops into two months, and Mac discovers just why Scarlett is enamored of Berlin—she surprises him by announcing that she’s married to a young man, Otto Piffl, who happens to be an East German Communist with ardent “anti-Yankee” views. The socialist couple are bound for Moscow to make a new life for themselves (“They’ve assigned us a magnificent apartment, just a short walk from the bathroom!”). Since Hazeltine and his wife are coming to Berlin to collect their daughter the very next day, this is obviously a disaster of monumental proportions, and Mac deals with it as any good capitalist would — by framing the young Communist firebrand and having him picked up by the Stasi, the East German secret police, who later force Otto to sign a confession that he’s an American spy (after finally cracking from repeated exposure to the song, Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini during interrogation).

Under pressure from his stern and disapproving wife (who wants to take her family back to live in the U.S.), and with the revelation that Scarlett is pregnant, Mac sets out to bring Otto back with the help of his new Russian business associates. With the boss on the way, he finds that his only chance is to turn Otto into a son-in-law in good standing — which means, among other things, making him a capitalist with an aristocratic pedigree (albeit contrived). In the end, the Hazeltines approve of their new son-in-law (upon which Mac learns from Hazeltine that Otto will be named the new head of Western European operations—with Mac getting a promotion to VP of Procurement (back in Atlanta)) Mac reconciles with his family at the airport, and to celebrate his promotion, offers to buy his family a Coke. Ironically, after handing out the Cokes to his family, he realizes upon inspection that the final bottle he takes for himself is actually Pepsi-Cola.

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Trivia Tid-Bits…

• At one point MacNamara, played by James Cagney, threatens Otto with half a grapfruit so that the scene resembles the famous one in The Public Enemy, Cagney pushed into Mae Clarke’s face.
• Red Buttons, in a small role as an MP, does a Cagney imitation to James Cagney.
• After he learns Scarlett is pregnant, James Cagney moans, “Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?” This was Edward G. Robinson’s famous line from Little Caesar.
• The voice of Count von Droste Schattenburg (played on screen by Hubert von Meyerinck) is that of Sig Ruman.
• The building of the Berlin Wall had begun in the night of August 13, 1961, right through the set at the Brandenburger Tor. The team, discovering the change in the morning, had to move to Munich to shoot the missing scenes on the parking lot of the Bavaria Film Studios, where a copy of the lower half of the Brandenburger Tor had to be built.
• Billy Wilder made James Cagney do over 30 takes of a scene because Cagney kept saying “coat and striped pants” instead of “morning coat and striped pants.”
• In James Cagney’s autobiography, he says that Horst Buchholz was the only actor he really hated working with because he was uncooperative and tried all kinds of scene-stealing moves, which Cagney depended on Billy Wilder to correct. Had Wilder not firmly directed Bucholz, Cagney said that he “was going to knock Buchholz on his ass, which at several points I would have been very happy to do”.
• At the “Grand Hotel Potemkin”, the band plays the song “Yes, We Have No Bananas” (in German of course). This song is used in Billy Wilder’s previous film, Sabrina
• Pamela Tiffin was reportedly having trouble acting with such experienced performers. Legend has it that James Cagney helped her by giving her the famous advice about acting: “Walk into a room. Plant yourself. Look the other fella in the eye and tell the truth.”
• When Billy Wilder was at Paramount, he often clashed with an executive at the studio named Y. Frank Freeman. Freeman was from Georgia and would often brag about his extensive holdings of Coca-Cola stock. That relationship was part of the inspiration for this project.
• In addition to the “Yes, We Have No Bananas” song, Billy Wilder also borrowed the climactic switcheroo from Sabrina right down to the hat and umbrella. Piffl goes to London instead of MacNamara, just as Linus Larrabee goes to Paris instead of David Larrabee.
• The building of the Berlin Wall during production badly hurt the film’s marketing in Germany. It was very ill-received by German audiences and had minimal success during its initial run.
• When asked in 1974 why he made a film about Coca Cola, Billy Wilder responded, “I just think Coca-Cola to be funny. And when I drink it, it seems even funnier to me.”
• James Cagney had such a negative experience making this picture that he retired from films for 20 years until his cameo in Ragtime.
• Joan Crawford (then on the board of PepsiCo) telephoned director Billy Wilder to protest the movie’s Coca-Cola connection. Wilder then added a final scene in which James Cagney buys four bottles of Coke from a vending machine. The last bottle out of the machine isn’t Coke – but another brand… of Pepsi.
• The instruction at the front of Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond’s screenplay reads: “This piece must be played molto furioso”. Suggested speed: 110 miles an hour – on the curves – 140 miles an hour in the straightways. “
• At one point Cagney says, “I wish I were in hell with my back broken,” a line Billy Wilder used in at least two of his earlier films. Humphrey Bogart says the same line in “Sabrina”, and Akim Tamiroff says a slight variation, “I wish I were in a black pit with my back broken,” in “Five Graves to Cairo”.
• The Brandenburg Gate figures rather prominently in this film. It and the rest of the border between East and West Berlin were closed on August 13, 1961, only months before this film was released.
• To cause problems for Otto Piffl (Horst Buchholz), James Cagney gives him a cuckoo clock that plays “Yankee Doodle Dandy” causing Buchholz to get arrested by the East Germany police. Jimmy Cagney played the lead role in Yankee Doodle Dandy, the story of George M. Cohan, the composer of “Yankee Doodle Dandy.”

Selected IMDB.com User Reviews…

James Cagney is at the top of his game giving a machine gun like delivery of his lines, once again, demonstrating his status as a legendary star.

Add to this, a cast of good character actors, some familiar like Leon Askin and Red Buttons and some not so familiar. All in all a cast that helps makes a film that delivers laughs in rapid fire succession!

Included in this cast is Horst Buchholz who is especially funny as the loony communist. Now, someone mentioned that Jack Lemmon thought a regular comedian should have been put in that role. I think that would have made the character less funny. It needs the “serious” touch that Buchholz gives Otto that really makes his statements even more ludicrous and therefore even funnier. A good example is the scene where Otto makes his comments on Americanism while being dragged out of the room, “America, unemployment, discrimination, gangsterism, juvenile delinquency, but under our new 20 year plan, we will catch up with you!”.

If any one has not seen this gem, my advice is look for it on TV, buy it, rent it, just watch it! You won’t stop laughing!

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Billy Wilder’s hilarious Cold War comedy that only gets better with each viewing. It does help some, of course, to know the politics of the region and of that time period. Irregardless, one need not be a Hoover Institute Fellow to pick these up quickly. James Cagney, proving his acting range was virtually borderless, turns in a superb performance as the soft drink exec seeking an upper echelon corporate job.

With a terrific supporting cast, Cagney’s corporate dreams are about to explode, when the boss’ wild daughter flies into Berlin. Creating havoc, and not to mention more stress on his wounded marriage, the daughter runs off cavorting about in the Eastern Sector.

Corporate ambitions, romance and strong politics collide in this volatile, hilarious, extremely fast paced comedy. This is how a real comedic farce is put together, and it goes off without a hitch, all the way to the last gag. There’s also some great homages/inside jokes to boot. A comedy classic, and another gem from Mr. Wilder.

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Monsieur Verdoux movie is one of my favorites of all time. I have watched it probably over 200 times in the past. This great Charlie Chaplin movie can now be seen in full, including two featurettes:  (1) Introduction of Chaplin and Monsieur Verdoux, discussing the historical and cinematic context of the film;  and  (2) Documentary on Charlie Chaplin and his film based on a true story “Monsieur Verdoux” which was inspired by Orson Welles who originally gave the idea to Chaplin to make the movie.

According to Wikipedia: The film is about an unemployed banker, Henri Verdoux, and his sociopathic methods of attaining income. While being both loyal and competent in his work, Verdoux has been laid-off. To make money for his wife and child, he marries wealthy widows and then murders them. His crime spree eventually works against him when two particular widows break his normal routine. The film ends as Verdoux is being led to the guillotine in the prison courtyard after dismissing his killing of a few as no worse than the highly-praised killing of large numbers in war. The script for this film, the idea for it given by Orson Welles, was inspired by the case of serial killer Henri Désiré Landru. Welles sought to direct the film with Chaplin as star, but Chaplin backed out at the last minute, on the grounds that he’d never been directed in a full length film before and wasn’t willing to start. Instead, Chaplin bought the script from Welles and rewrote parts of it, crediting Welles only with the idea. The lead character kills to make money, hence he is not (in his eyes) a murderer.

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This movie is a work of art.  Hands down!

The Manchurian Candidate (1962) by Richard Condon, is a political thriller novel about the son of a prominent US political family who has been brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for the Communist Party.

Captain Bennett Marco, Sergeant Raymond Shaw, and the rest of their infantry platoon are kidnapped during the Korean War in 1952. They are taken to Manchuria, and are brainwashed to believe that Sgt. Shaw saved their lives in combat — for which the Army awards him the Medal of Honor. ————— Years after the war, Marco, now back in the United States working as an intelligence officer, begins suffering the recurring nightmare of Raymond Shaw murdering two of his comrades, all clinically observed by Chinese and Russian intelligence officials. When Marco learns that another soldier from the platoon also has been suffering the same nightmare, he sets to uncovering the mystery and its meaning. ————— It is revealed that the Communists have been using Raymond Shaw as a sleeper agent, a guiltless assassin subconsciously activated by seeing the “Queen of Diamonds” playing card while playing solitaire. As such, he obeys orders, which he then forgets. Raymond Shaw’s Soviet secret service controller is his domineering mother, Eleanor, a ruthless power broker working with the Communists to execute a “palace coup d’état” and quietly overthrow the U.S. Government with the “Manchurian Candidate”: her husband, McCarthy-esque Senator Johnny Iselin. – Wikipedia

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Trivia Tid-Bits…

• Iselin’s plane in real life was owned by Frank Sinatra.
• One scene was filmed at the Bar and Grill that Frank Sinatra’s friend Jilly Rizzo owned in New York City.
• Frank Sinatra broke one of his fingers when he hit the table, which was real and not a break-away prop, in the fight sequence with Henry Silva. Due to ongoing filming commitments, he could not rest or bandage his hand properly, causing the injury to heal incorrectly. It caused him chronic discomfort for the rest of his life.
• Angela Lansbury was thirty-six at the time of filming, only three years older than Laurence Harvey, who played her son.
• All the members of the platoon in Korea are named after cast and crew of “The Phil Silvers Show” (1955).
• It took a full week to film the opening dream sequence. Director John Frankenheimer rushed a rough edit of the sequence to Frank Sinatra, then decided to keep the cut in the final movie unchanged.
• In the scene where Frank Sinatra gives the all-queens deck of cards to Laurence Harvey, Sinatra is out of focus. He had trouble recreating his performance, so director John Frankenheimer left the footage as is. Audiences weren’t bothered; they interpreted it as Harvey’s blurred perspective.
• Frank Sinatra wanted Lucille Ball for the role of Mrs. Iselin which was played by Angela Lansbury.
• When Captain Marco is shown a photo of the Communist official Gomel (Reggie Nalder) at a child’s birthday party, the two children in the photo are actually the children of screenwriter George Axelrod.
• The topic of the movie was considered politically so highly sensitive it was censored and prohibited just before its theatrical release in many of the former ‘Iron Curtain’ countries, such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria – and even in neutral countries such as Finland and Sweden. The theatrical premiere for most of those countries was held after the collapse of Soviet Union in 1993.
• The scenes of the convention were filmed at the Old Madison Square Garden on 8th ave at 49th street. The last event ever held there was in Febuary 1968. It was torn down shortly after closing and today an office tower stands on the site.
• Contrary to popular belief, the film was not pulled from circulation following the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It made its American television debut on The CBS Thursday Night Movies in September 1965 (source: Broadcasting magazine), and was repeated on that network later that season. Only when the rights reverted to Frank Sinatra in 1972 did the film disappear from view, although even then turning up for third and fourth network showings on NBC in spring 1974 (source: TV Guide) and summer 1975 (source: Variety). Sinatra’s neglect in keeping the film in distribution gave rise to the legend that it was suppressed because of its alleged role in Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination of the 35th president. The legend was further perpetuated when Sinatra, in alliance with MGM/UA, re-released the film to theaters in 1988. When the rumor was debunked in an article in Films in Review, another myth, one claiming that Sinatra and UA had a dispute about the profits, took its place. The myth survives to this day, but it is pure fiction.
• George Axelrod copied the lecture about hydrangeas verbatim from a seed catalogue.
• A scene where Laurence Harvey jumps in Central Park lake was shot on the coldest day in 30 years. They had to break the foot-thick ice on the lake with a bulldozer before the scene could be shot.
• One of the early uses of martial arts in a key fight sequence (between Frank Sinatra and Henry Silva, over a decade before the Kung Fu craze of the 1970s. Still earlier, however, is Blood on the Sun (1945), with its climactic judo bout involving James Cagney in Blood on the Sun (1945) And though Peter Lorre was using jujitsu in Mr. Moto movies as early as 1937, Harry Parke (as Parkyakarkus) mentions jujitsu in the Eddie Cantor movie Strike Me Pink (1936).
• Prior to the commissioning of the book as a movie, Arthur Krim, then President of United Artists and Finance Chairman of the Democratic Party, is known to have felt uneasy about its subject matter. President John F. Kennedy, as a favor to his friend Frank Sinatra, called Krim to let him know that he had no objection to a film version being made.
• Famous for his use of innovative camera angles, director John Frankenheimer was widely acclaimed for a shot that is slightly out of focus. John Frankenheimer said that rather than the shot being evidence of inspiration, it was an accident and merely the best take for actor Frank Sinatra.
• The army psychiatrist in this movie was the first black actor cast in a part that wasn’t specified as a black character.
• Rosie’s number, ELdorado 5-xxxx was once a telephone company test number that would always give anyone who calls it a busy signal. However, as of 2009, the number is active in at least one area code.
• John Frankenheimer opted to direct this movie after plans to film author Richard Yates’s 1961 novel “Revolutionary Road” failed to materialize.
• By his own admission Frank Sinatra’s best work always came in the first take. John Frankenheimer always liked the idea of using the freshness of a first take – so nearly all of the key scenes featuring Sinatra are first takes, unless a technical problem prevented them being used.
• SPOILER: Frank Sinatra refers to Orestes and Clytemnestra when he is talking to Laurence Harvey. Clytemnestra was the wife of Agamemnon (King of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Mycenae) who, with her lover Aegisthus, murdered him and took over the throne. Orestes, the son of Clytemnestra, later killed them both.
• SPOILER: On the copy of the New York Post announcing the slaying of Senator Jordan and his daughter, a small headline at the top reads: “VIOLENT HURRICANE SWEEPS MIDWEST; 20 DEAD, HUNDREDS HOMELESS”
• SPOILER: In Richard Condon’s novel, the relationship between Mrs. Iselin and her son Raymond is more explicitly incestuous, complete with a bed scene. Director John Frankenheimer and screenwriter George Axelrod wanted to include that element, but reduced it to the less-than-motherly kiss that Mrs. Iselin plants on Raymond’s lips. To appease the censors, Frankenheimer instructed Angela Lansbury to put her hand between their mouths and the camera during the kiss to obscure what she was doing a bit. By time of the second remake on Condon’s book (the 2004 Jonathan Demme film), the incestuous content between the mother and son shown on screen had been reduced even more, so that the camera cuts away before she kisses her son on the lips, only leaving the implication of that relationship between them.

Source of trivia information: IMDB.com

This film is a masterpiece. I love old classic movies, and this one is in my top-10 list of all-time favorites. The title of this film comes from the Book of Proverbs, 11:29: “He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind.” Based on the true events of the Scopes Monkey Trial which took place in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925. The story is very thought-provoking from both points of view — the evolutionist and the fundamental Christian. It’s a rare 1960 American classic that takes the grand clash of ideas. The presentation does justice by conveying effectively the sweaty claustrophobia of small town in Bible-belt America. Whether or not the hesitation in bringing out such a potentially controversial, expanded package is a matter of intelligent design or just random selection, the public will have to judge for itself. From here, a lot can still be seen happening today, all over the world, and in every kind of religion vs. other religion and/or ideologies.

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Trivia Tid-Bits…

• Was the first in-flight movie ever shown on Trans World Airlines.
• When Stanley Kramer offered the role of E.K. Hornbeck to Gene Kelly, Kelly initially turned it down. Kramer told him that his co-stars would be Fredric March and Spencer Tracy, and Kelly changed his mind. This was a risky move on Kramer’s part, as he had not yet asked March or Tracy to participate.
• Robert Vaughn was offered the role of E.K. Hornbeck, in case Gene Kelly turned it down. But he instead opted to make The Magnificent Seven.
• To heighten the tension of Spencer Tracy’s final summation to the jury, the scene was filmed in a single take.
• Writers Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee named the overzealous prosecutor “Matthew Brady”. When Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle was tried for manslaughter three times in 1921/22, the real overzealous prosecuting San Francisco District Attorney was named Matthew Brady. Matthew Brady was also the name of the famous portrait and landscape photographer of the American Civil War.
• When Drummond’s attempt to call scientific experts to the stand to testify in behalf of the defense is thwarted, Stanley Kramer adds a couple of elements from the actual Scopes Trial, combining the fiery closing of Clarence Darrow’s speech on the motion to quash the indictment with the change in which Judge Raulston cited Darrow for contempt.
• The character Henry Drummond is based on real-life attorney Clarence Darrow. Matthew Harrison Brady is based on William Jennings Bryan. Schoolteacher Bertram T. Cates is based on schoolteacher John Thomas Scopes (hence “Scopes Monkey Trial”).
• A young Burt Reynolds got to visit the set and watch some of the courtroom scenes being filmed because he was doing some TV work nearby and Spencer Tracy was one of his idols.
• The character of E.K. Hornbeck was based on American journalist H.L. Mencken, who had notably covered the Scopes trial.
• Fredric March and Spencer Tracy both played the dual roles of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in 1931 (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) and 1941 (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) respectively. March received an Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal.
• The theatrical trailer, hosted by Stanley Kramer, shows Kramer, along with Gregory Peck and his wife Veronique Passani (aka Celia Peck), Jeff Chandler, Otto Preminger, Walter Wanger, and West Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt attending the Berlin Film Festival premiere, where Kramer receives an award presented by Harold Lloyd, who was on the festival committee.
• In the scene where Drummond (Spencer Tracy) tells the story of his rocking horse “Golden Dancer” to Brady (Fredric March), they are sitting in rocking chairs on the porch of the boarding house. The actors are both rocking their chairs but are never in sync with each other to emphasize their differences of opinion.
• The original Broadway production of “Inherit the Wind” by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee opened at the National Theater on 21 April 1955, ran for 806 performances and won two acting Tony Awards in 1956. The opening night cast included Paul Muni as Drummond (Melvyn Douglas later took over the role when Muni developed a cataract), Ed Begley as Brady and Tony Randall as Hornbeck. There has been 2 Broadway revivals; in 1996 with Charles Durning and George C. Scott and in 2007 with Brian Dennehy and Christopher Plummer.
• The subplot concerning Cates’s engagement to the Rev. Brown’s daughter Rachel, and Brady’s manipulation of the girl to give damaging testimony at the trial, is entirely fictional. The real-life John Scopes had no known fiancee or girlfriend at the time of the trial.
• Because of the criticism directed at producer Stanley Kramer by the American Legion for hiring Nedrick Young, who they considered subversive, Moss Hart as president of The Authors League of America sent Kramer a telegram: “The Authors League of America council, which has always unalterably opposed any form of blacklisting of writers, unanimously voted at a meeting today to commend and applaud you for your courageous stand in rejecting publicly the effort to interfere, on pseudo-patriotic grounds, with the right of writers to work.”
• Dick York’s final feature film.

Source of trivia information: IBDM.com