(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.