ONE, TWO, THREE (1961)

Billy Wilder’s jokes on the divide between Communist dogma and Capitalist indoctrination had coarsened considerably since he co-wrote NINOTCHKA for Ernst Lubitsch in ‘39.*  Shot on location at the height of the Cold War (the Berlin Wall went up during production in the middle of an active set), it’s taken from a late ‘20s Ferenc Molnár play where class rather than politics was the issue as a taxi driver is molded overnight into an aristocrat facsimile.  Now, the transformation performed on young, doctrinaire Party Member Horst Buchholz, overplaying to beat the band and awkwardly engaged to American Coca-Cola Princess Pamela Tiffin (smoothly changing from airhead to sexual strategist).  But James Cagney, Berlin’s top Coca-Cola exec, is really the whole show here, working all angles at once to turn this raw kid into something acceptable to his Atlanta-based boss, Dad to the ‘princess’ and flying in tomorrow to check on his new son-in-law.  Did we mention the lovebirds are not only secretly married, but also not so secretly expecting?  The first act has a surprisingly high percentage of dud jokes, getting by solely on Cagney’s quicksilver pace, chutzpah & sheer momentum (the first act plays far better with an audience carrying it along).  Fortunately, the last forty minutes see Wilder & co-scripter I.A.L. Diamond finally stick the landing on their jokes & visual gags, not simply riding on Cagney’s admittedly rather amazing torque, staccato delivery and bantam rooster posturing.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID/DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Speaking of NINOTCHKA, that’s Sig Ruman, one of NINOTCHKA’s trio of Russian Commissioners in Paris, dubbing this film’s Count Washroom Attendant.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2017/12/ninotchka-1939.html