Billy Wilder

Career / Biography

Billy Wilder directed a number of films from the 1930s through to the 1980s and won two Oscars as best director. He directed a mixture of films from drama to comedy. He also wrote the screenplay for over 80 films. His early life was in Vienna and became a journalist in Berlin, soon writing about the cinema ata time when German cinema was leading the world. He started writing film scripts and his second screenplay People On Sunday was a major success. Also involved in this film were : Curt Siodmak, his brother Robert Siodmak, Edgar G. Ulmer and Fred Zinnemann. The rise of the Nazi's led him to move to Paris where he directed his first film, Mauvaise Graine. Before the film was released he moved to Hollywood and had to learn English quickly. He gradually got noticed for his writing with hs screenplay for Ninotchka that got him really noticed as a writer. He continued to write screenplays for Paramount often in collaboration with Charles Brackett. he disliked the way director were chnaging his scripts and eventually Parampunt agreed he could a direct a film which was The Major And The Minor. Five Graves To Cairowas a move away from comedy and into the war genre. This was followed by the thriller Double Indemnity which he again wrote and directed. This is arguably the first film that is fully Film Noir. This was followed by the even more successfull Lost Weekend. In 1948 he returned to Germany to make A Foreign Affair, which is documentary like love triangle. The Emperor Waltz was a musical comedy, thought he did not get on with Bing Crosby. His next major success was Sunset Boulevard which is notable for the opening shot being a dead man in a swimming pool who then narrates the story. This was a critic of Hollywood and he then turned his attention to newspapers with Ace In The Hole. That was not a sucess and was follwed by the war film Stalag 17. There is an informant in the prison camp and Billy Wilder shot the film chronologically so none of the cast knew who the informant was, including the informant themselves. Sabrina was a major commercial success. His first film in colour was the Seven Year Itch and features the icon scene of Marilym Monroe's dress billowing up over the air vent. Witness for the Prosecution was an adaptation of the Agatha Christie novel. Love in the Afternoon was another film with Audrey Heoburn and the first collaboration with writer I A L Diamond. His next collaboration with I A L Diamond was Some lIke It Hot. Whist there were all sorst of problems making the film it is considered to be one of the best comedy films that has been made. The Apartment won him his second Best Director Oscar. He continued to work after this but without the same level of scuccess. Though in 1966 he was the first to pair Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau together. His final film was Buddy Buddy with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.

Career / Biography

Director

Producer

Writer

Oscars