The Apartment - Plot

Plot

C. C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) is a lonely office drone for a national insurance corporation in a high-rise building in New York City. In order to climb the corporate ladder, Baxter allows four company managers, on different evenings of the week, to take turns borrowing his Upper West Side apartment for their various extramarital liaisons that are so noisy that his neighours assume he is bringing home different women every night.

The four managers write glowing reports about Baxter and the personnel director, Jeffery Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray), promotes him to his personal staff, but not before convincing Baxter to give him exclusive privilege to the apartment. He insists on using it that very night and, as compensation for such short notice, gives Baxter two company-sponsored tickets to the then hit (and always sold-out) Broadway musical The Music Man.

After work, Baxter catches Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), an elevator operator he has had his eye on. They agree to meet up at the theater after she has a drink with a former fling. While Baxter waits, Miss Kubelik meets with Mr. Sheldrake, who convinces her that he is divorcing his wife for her. He takes her to Baxter's apartment while Baxter waits for her at the movie theater, never going in.

Several weeks later, at the Company's raucous Christmas Eve office party, Baxter inadvertently discovers the relationship between Sheldrake and Miss Kubelik, though he conceals this realization. Back at his apartment, Miss Kubelik reveals to Sheldrake that she's learned from his secretary (Edie Adams) that she is merely the latest female employee to be Sheldrake's mistress, the secretary herself having filled that role several years earlier. While she is upset with herself for believing his lies, Sheldrake maintains that he genuinely loves her and leaves to return to his suburban family.

Meanwhile, a holiday-depressed Baxter picks up a woman in a local bar and, upon their arrival at his apartment, is shocked to find Miss Kubelik in his bed, fully clothed and unconscious from an intentional overdose of Baxter's sleeping pills. He sends his bar pickup home and enlists the help of his neighbor, Dr. Dreyfus, in reviving Miss Kubelik without notifying the authorities. She spends several days recuperating at his apartment while Baxter tries to entertain and distract her from any further suicidal thoughts, talking her into playing numerous hands of gin rummy, though she is largely uninterested.

Since she has been missing, Miss kubelik's brother-in-law comes to the office looking for her. The four executives direct him to Baxter's apartment, assuming that Baxter, who still denies them the use of his apartment, and Miss Kubelik are having an affair. The brother-in-law assumes the worst of Baxter and punches him twice after confronting the pair in Baxter's apartment.

Sheldrake fires his secretary for revealing his history of womanizing. She retaliates by telling his wife about his infidelities, leading to the breakup of his marriage. Sheldrake, having moved into a room at his athletic club, figures he can string Miss Kubelik along while he enjoys his newfound bachelorhood. When he requests access to Baxter's apartment on New Year's Eve, Baxter refuses and quits the firm in the process. When Miss Kubelik hears of this from Sheldrake, she realizes that Baxter is the man who truly loves her, and runs to his apartment. She arrives at his apartment alone and she insists on resuming their earlier game of gin rummy. When he declares his love for her, her reply is the now-famous final line of the film: "Shut up and deal".